


Ocean and Sky

by repository909



Category: Subnautica (Video Game), markiplier - Fandom
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alien Bacterial Infection, Amnesia, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Courage, Crafting Survival Game, Fear, Friendship, Gamer Insert, Gamer fic, Gen, Humor, Language, Loneliness, Mark hates the ocean, No Romance, No Slash, POV Second Person, Present Tense, Teamwork, because no one's ever done that before
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:20:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 42,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28455243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/repository909/pseuds/repository909
Summary: Gamer-insert: Markiplier returns to Subnautica.
Kudos: 5





	1. Get Out of the Water

You heave yourself up through the lower hatch and, like a fish, flop onto the cold floor. Convulsive gasps wrack your body as you suck down precious oxygen to placate the adrenaline flooding your system. Face turned towards the ceiling, your eyes only register flashes of the green and blue monster, a mouth full of uneven teeth. Your hands grip your abdomen, feeling torn flesh through a hole in your dive suit. You recall a red cloud trailing behind you during your frantic paddle back to safety.

Why can’t you remember the creature’s name? It’s not like it would make a difference, but you are sure you knew it once – said it a dozen times and shrieked it just as many. The chair and headphones are gone this time. This time, it’s real.

It wasn’t a leviathan, no, it was one of the smaller ones. Maybe you’re wracking your brain out of some obligation to finality. If you could put a name to the snaggletoothed face, you could give it its due blame and accept your fate. Maybe it’s just the blood loss talking.

The emergency lights in the pod dim; a shower of sparks erupts in harsh pinpoints of fire. White smoke tinges the air, and it burns your eyes.

Out of all the games you’ve played, why did it have to be Subnautica? Your one mortal fear, and it checks that box in the most horrific way. Then again, compared to the others, at least you got to see sunshine and vibrant sea life before being ripped apart.

As the alien world blinks in and out, you half expect to bolt upright, free from this fever dream and the throbbing pain in your midsection. Or maybe in a hospital, judging by the head-shaped object darkening the overhead light. You’ll wake up to a nurse calling you by your last name – you were in a coma, you’re safe now.

The head grows an arm and shakes your shoulder. For a moment, your vision focuses on the nurse’s mouth. It moves, but you cannot hear any words. The light is dimming again. You were in a coma. You’re safe now.

The pain wakes you up. From the center of your core and radiating outward, a quiet agony starts. It has you writhing on the floor in less than a minute, the full intensity of your injuries lighting up your nerve endings. You fear raging infection. You fear disembowelment. Propped up on your elbows, and withstanding the fresh torment doing so brings, you take a look. 

Your dive suit is torn from your navel to your left side, blood staining the gray fabric. However, instead of seeing the raw meat of your innards, an improvised bandage sits over the worst of it. Crisscrossing lacerations, shallow by comparison at an inch deep or less, surround a central point below your ribcage. Touching it sends your shoulders back to the floor, your body stiffening in rebellion to the prodding. Even without further exploration, you can tell it’s packed deep with more bandages.

And what are these bandages made from? Well, your arms are bare, so it doesn’t take much to guess. But you were in no condition to tear the sleeves off your suit and apply first aid. That, coupled with the bottle of water and silver cube sitting within arm’s reach, leaves no mistake as to your current situation – you are not alone out here.

Stifling a groan, you reach out for the water and silver block. The water is fresh, and you drink it as effectively as you can from a prone position on the floor, resulting in a fourth of it dribbling down your chin. An outer layer of foil peels away from the cube to reveal a brown surface with the texture of cardboard, but unmistakably edible. Though it tastes marginally better than salted bread, you eat the entire thing. Occasional sips from the remaining water assist with swallowing the dry substance.

You’re not alone out here. You mull this information over with the food sitting heavy in your stomach. The supplies and first aid suggest they want to help, but if that was the case, then where are they now?

Your strength returns slowly as you digest. Someone knows you are out here. If you wait, they might come back.

A few minutes turn into ten, one hour into two. Whatever they did left a tacky, yet hard, residue on your open wounds. The pain recedes to a dull roar, but the most you can manage is a single scoot in the direction of the nearest wall. When you regain consciousness, you decide not to try that again. So much for going out to look for your mystery medic. Staying in one place so they could find you again was the safer option, statistically.

Another hour passes. You begin to doubt the helpfulness of this person who may or may not have been a figment of your imagination. Left on your own, you might have bled out by now, or at least been unconscious with shock. At this rate, you might have to wait for infection to take you. 

The floor hatch opens. A dark face mask appears out of the hole, followed shortly by a pair of black and orange arms, then a body. Closing the hatch, they rip off the mask.

It’s a woman. When she scrambles over to you and makes a grab for your PDA, you flinch back. You want to ask questions, to ask for help, to make her back up, and to give back your PDA, but she toggles the display on and then off a moment later, and all you can manage is a pained whimper. Setting the device aside, she starts pulling items out of thin air and inches up to your injured side.

She has a few first-aid packs and more water, but when she reaches for the bandages around your middle, you weakly try to bat her hands away.

“Wait, no, wait,” you croak. That’s where the hurt is.

“Can’t wait, sorry,” she replies, unwinding the makeshift bandages. When she gets to the small clump of red gauze packing the deepest punctures, she pauses.

“You might want to do yourself a favor and pass out for this,” she says.

You’re about to reply, but then she pulls out the first bloody ball – you don’t feel anything – and the world is already tilting back. You pass out.

You have to blink away the darkness, then the overwhelming light, then the blurriness. Eventually, the lifepod’s interior appears. The wall panels gleam and reflect a dozen pinpoints of fluorescent glare, much brighter than before.

It hurts to breathe, but at least the ache is easily tolerated. Moving is still probably out of the question. Turning your head, you find the girl from before. She’s standing in front of the pod’s instrument panel, attention bouncing between the near-holographic display and the PDA in her hand. Every few seconds, she taps one of the screens and it changes.

Your tongue is dry. It takes more effort to speak, and that effort strains the injuries along your ribs.

“What happened?” you ask.

She turns away from the wall, though she enters a few more commands into the PDA.

“You passed out,” she says, taking a seat on the edge of the bench-like storage compartment. “Having your side ripped open will do that to you. Let me guess, Stalker?”

“Huh?”

“Stalker attack? Judging by the bite, it’s too deep to be a Shark, doesn’t have the symmetry either. And if it was a Reaper, well, you’d be missing at least one side of your rib cage.”

What she’s saying, it sounds familiar, but your brain feels as dry as your mouth. Despite the endless assault on your senses, the world still seems unreal – like she’s talking at you through a window of thick, double-paned glass.

She goes on to discuss your low vital readings and how she accessed your PDA to monitor your overall condition. Speaking of which, she produces another bottle of water. As you drink it, you consider your unique discomfort at having another person know you were thirsty simply by looking at a screen. She briefly describes what she did to treat your injuries, adding that she doesn’t have any medical training right after you start to believe she knew what she was doing. The hard, tacky residue was the result of a spray-on adhesive bandage. Almost all first-aid kits have a canister, but she used at least two. The remainder of her efforts essentially boiled down to tape and bandages.

“How did you find me?” you ask. Never mind the question of how either of you got here in the first place.

“Emergency distress signal,” she says, gesturing to the pod’s control panel with a glance over her shoulder. “The pod sends out an automatic message after it’s deployed. Coordinates, occupant status, hull integrity – it’s all right here.” She picks up the PDA from her lap and shakes it back and forth. “I wouldn’t have come at all, but then I saw that it was Lifepod Five.”

She says it like it’s of some significance, but trauma, blood loss, and aliens make for a perpetually bleary cocktail. Then she’s shaking your shoulder – you must have nodded off – and asks when you think you’ll be ready to head out. Your surroundings snap into focus as you recall the hazards gliding through the water. The attack was close enough to watch your pod bounce back and forth as the creature, the _Stalker_ , shook you. You’re not about to risk your life again, and you tell her as much.

She argues that your injuries need more than her limited medical experience can provide inside a little lifepod. Better equipment, more supplies, antibiotics, an actual bed for actual bed rest. It sounds promising, but at this point, you’d still rather take your chances with a quick patch job than go out there.

“I can help you,” she says, an intense seriousness on her face, “and I know your wounds are deep, but I need you to at least try to swim. If you can do that, I can make sure you stay safe and don’t drown. I can’t do it all on my own.”

“Who even are you?”

“What? Oh, sorry. My name is,” she says, then her expression falls. After a few moments, she taps you on the shoulder and with a simple, “Rest,” climbs up the ladder and through the hatch. The hatch closes, and once again, you’re alone.

She wants you to go back outside, back where the monsters are. You can barely move – how does she expect you to swim?

Her return startles you out of a fitful doze. Once down the ladder, she crosses her arms and tilts her head down.

“Sorry for ducking out earlier,” she says. “You can call me Skye.” A shaky shift of her shoulders, and then, “It’s midday and the weather is good. If ever there was a time to go, it’s now.”

Thus, the argument begins again. Those things can probably smell blood and you don’t want to die. She claims to possess the means to protect you. Does she have an enclosed and fortified vehicle? No, you can borrow her Seaglide. Is that like windsurfing? Never mind, she’ll help you use it. Does she have a weapon to ward off the creatures with big teeth? She has a knife.

Merely trying to convince her that you value your life is wearing you out. The very thought of swimming is exhausting. And how far does she want you to swim? Oh, not far, just a mile, two tops – depending on how many detours you have to take to avoid the local wildlife. Any chance of running into those blue-green serpents again? Of course – the route leads through their territory. How does she not understand that this is a bad idea?

The only reason she manages to overpower you is the lingering weakness from the massive blood loss you sustained. Now on your feet, though wobbling precariously, you feel a sharp sting on your arm. She withdraws a short syringe. As if you didn’t have enough holes already.

“That was a shot of adrenaline,” she says. “It should give you enough energy to reach the habitat. Sink or swim, I’m getting you there.”

She gives you a swift push, and suddenly you’re falling through the open hatch. You bang your hand on the way down. The cold water strikes you harder than that stimulant injection, and you feebly bat your limbs against the soft current. Then she’s in the water with you, pushing you towards the light.

You cough and sputter once your head breaks the surface, taking big gasps of air. You try to yell at her, but salty water keeps slipping into your mouth. She’s not paying attention anyhow. PDA in hand, she makes a Seaglide appear. It looks like a miniature jet engine with handholds.

“Hold here,” she instructs, positioning the machine in front of you. “I’m going to set it to ‘low,’ so it won’t pull too hard. Stay near the surface so you can breathe, but keep this submerged, otherwise it’ll stall out.”

“Are you sure. We won’t. Be attacked?” you ask in between waves.

“No, I’m not,” she replies, treading water much more effortlessly. “But if anything does come along, I can handle it. Just focus on holding on and keeping your head above water.”

The Seaglide whirs to life and starts to pull you along. With her help, you learn how to hold your arms to get the small motor running level while also keeping your head above the waves. Swimming alongside, she steers the Seaglide with small adjustments. A hand on your arm or upper back keeps you steady as colorful corals pass beneath you and the sea floor drops off. A curious look proves there are, indeed, big creatures swimming around below you. The young woman, on the other hand, doesn’t appear too concerned. She spends most of the trip submerged, surfacing only to replenish her air tanks. You hope she’s keeping an eye out for flesh-eating monsters, and that she was telling the truth when she said she could handle it if any get too close.

You can no longer see the sea floor when she abruptly switches the Seaglide to idle. Behind you, the lifepod has disappeared – nothing but the horizon line as far as you can see. With her mask on, the young woman doesn’t speak. Instead, she gives you either a “stay” or “wait” signal, and then dives straight down.

The sun shines hot on your face as you tread water, exhaustion catching up to you. Your legs burn, and it takes considerable effort to unclench your hands from the Seaglide and wiggle your fingers. You must have swum at least five miles by now. Are you lost? Is she too proud to admit it to your face? A small wave pushes you down before closing over your head. With a grimace, you kick back up to the surface. You’re in open water. Alone.

By this point, you can’t say for certain which direction you would have to go to find the lifepod again. You could probably figure out how to switch the Seaglide back on, but then you’d just be going in a random direction. Given your luck so far, it would likely be the wrong direction.

Something brushes against your foot. The startled squawk you let out is, admittedly, very unmanly. Fortunately, you are not dragged down to the depths – instead, the young woman breaks the surface beside you.

Prying her mask off so you can hear her, she says, “Sorry, got a little carried away down there. We’re good.”

“What was it?” you ask.

“Nothing I couldn’t handle. Let’s keep going,” she says, repositioning her mask and engaging the Seaglide’s engine.

The second leg of the journey is even more grueling than the first and at least twice as long. When you ask if she has any more of those adrenaline shots, she administers one without question. It isn’t nearly as effective as the first. All the while, she monitors your condition on your PDA. She could just ask, and if you had the energy to give her a piece of your mind, you would.

Evening is falling as your vision starts to blur. Though she offers words of encouragement, it sounds like you’re underwater. For some reason, that doesn’t sound too bad right now. 

You’re so out of it, you almost don’t notice when you bump into something hard yet squishy, solid yet fluid. You don’t even argue when she takes you by the shoulders and drags you forward, only to drop you a few moments later.

Your limbs are suddenly heavy, and overwhelmingly so. The sensation of the waves’ never-ending push-pull still envelops you. At the same time, there is something solid at your back, and you feel strangely dry. Your eyes continue to function improperly, and you almost don’t believe that the ubiquitous aquamarine water is no longer in sight. In its place is a surface of pale gold; it’s coarse when it runs through your hands.

Tipping your head back, you utter three words you thought you’d never say again. “Land. Thank fuck.”

“C’mon Stalker Bait,” she says, shaking your arm. “Almost there. You can sleep in a bit.”

“I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” you mumble.

She hoists you to your feet, but you can only lean against her.

“You need to walk,” she insists.

“Am I bleeding?”

“No, but you’re obviously delirious. Let’s go, one foot in front of the other.”

The light blinks in and out. Can the sun blink, or does it only wink?


	2. Get the Facts Straight

You wake in a firm bed with a white blanket. Stripped down to your skivvies, you take a hasty look at your surroundings. The walls are white; the floor, dark and textured. The room is a vaguely round shape. Beside the bed, there is little furniture – a chair pushed up against the wall, a long table, and a potted plant. There is a single door.

Leaning back onto the bed, you close your eyes against the truth that surrounds you. It’s real. You’re inside a computer game, and the dangers are real.

Remembering the attack, the young woman, and portions of the long swim afterwards, you inspect your torso. Crisp white bandages wind around your ribs and abdomen. Your hands and arms have a few bandage strips each; peeling a couple back reveals small cuts. Beneath the covers, you can feel a few more on your legs. Your hand is sore from banging it on the hatch inside the lifepod. What a mess.

The floor is deceptively cold under your bare feet. Despite the heavy soreness seated in each and every muscle, you push your body to stand. A brief period of lightheadedness passes over you, then you’re steady enough to walk around the room. A sleek PDA sits on top of the counter-like surface; you’re not sure if it’s yours. You don’t feel hungry, yet it says you are at forty-eight percent hunger. Without your dive suit and belt to clip it to, you leave it in the room.

The door is heavier than you expected, but with a little pushing, it swings open to a curving corridor. You trail your hand along the wall as you round the bend to discover an almost identical, cylindrical chamber. Compared to the room with the bed, this room is downright cluttered. Posters of all kinds line the curving wall, from encouraging kittens to detailed technical blueprints, and you take a moment to inspect their subject matter as you slowly circumvent the space. The technology is alien; the content, space-themed. Seeing them brings back flashes of playing the game, but when you reach out to touch it, the crisp, waxy paper reminds you of its sudden reality.

Two rows of tables stand in the middle of the room, creating a channel between the door you entered through, and one standing opposite. Each table holds four or five pieces of unidentifiable equipment. One of the objects may function as a computer of sorts. Another appears to have capabilities related to the field of chemistry. You spot a model of the Aurora – the ship that supposedly brought you to this accursed planet – and you can hardly believe how small it seems when just a little bit ago, its size on the horizon was a being all too real and immensely daunting.

Through the open doorway, you see a series of additional open doorways, leading to at least three more rooms. The first has an empty floor plan with storage lockers lining the curved wall. A single ladder leading to a chamber above stands out. Though you peer through the opening, the ceiling of the upper level is the only thing visible.

“Hello?” you call up. Your voice has a slight echo, but you receive no proper response.

You consider climbing up to check out the other level, but when your outstretched arms shake with lingering weakness, you consider investigating the remainder of the level you are currently on instead.

Moving forward presents you with another cluttered-table room and three additional doors. Excluding a fabricator and a couple other non-tabled contraptions, everything scattered about the place appears either broken or disassembled. Identifiable among them are a knife blade with no handle, a gun-shaped tool with obvious black scorch marks, and a gutted Seaglide.

“Hello?” you call again, concerned by the quiet. The prospect of being alone still haunts your conscience.

The next room is another ring of storage lockers. After a brief look around, you exit and try the next one. More of the same. The third is similar, but with a door leading to another room straight ahead. When the next room proves to be the row-table room with a model of the Aurora, you realize you’ve gotten turned around. A quick look about the previous locker-ringed chamber turns up the ladder leading to the second level.

You decide to retrace your steps in case you missed anything. The second time working through the off-shooting rooms, now with a more methodical approach, you discover another ladder in the otherwise identical storage rooms. You almost didn’t notice it at all – this ladder leads down, and sits nearly flush to the floor. When you approach to glance down the hole, a sudden sensation of vertigo strikes you, and you leap back. Heart pounding, you take a moment to collect yourself before cautiously approaching the opening once again. Unlike the last, this ladder spans more than a single level, and though flooring layers appear at regular intervals, you cannot see the bottom from your position perched at the edge of this vast, vertical tunnel.

Eyes closed, you force out a strained, “Hello?” With no response, you try again, louder. “Hello?”

Still nothing, and you shuffle away from the edge.

“That’s an accident waiting to happen,” you mutter.

Once again, gaze turned towards a gray ceiling, you consider the prospect of abandonment, of solitary survival. When that gets depressing, you hoist yourself up and backtrack through the maze of identical rooms and nearly identical rooms. Going up is still an option, but then you would have to get down.

You approach a random storage cabinet and give it a pull, but it doesn’t open. You try the other side. Nothing. So you pull harder. It still doesn’t budge. A close examination reveals no seams, no hinges, no obvious ways to get it open. For all you know, it could be filled with food, water, and other vital survival gear, but it’s useless to you if you can’t get to it.

Back in the room with the Aurora model for a third time, you notice something you did not see the first time, or the second. A closed door stands to your right, hidden among the posters. Over your shoulder, another one stands opposite to your left. There is just enough space to squeeze between the nearest table and the wall as you make your way to the left door first.

Gripping the wheel-shaped handle, you glance up. “I’m going to guess, more locked cabinets.”

Trees are the exact opposite of what you expected, and you must do a cursory glance around to confirm that you are still inside a round room. Raised containers with brown dirt take up the majority of the floor space. Trees with orange fruit, and leafy plants with glowing flowers, stand in the largest beds. Beyond the four main planters sits smaller pots, each with a single plant. Beyond that, carpets of green line the walls.

You remember the trees. They were called “Lantern Trees,” you think, and their fruit was edible. Picking one is surprisingly easy. You hear juice sloshing around inside the teardrop fruit as you turn it over in your hands, inspecting the alien fruit for alien defects that could prevent you from eating it. You’re not sure the fruit is supposed to be warm, almost like it is alive, but other than the temperature difference, it appears pristine. You take a bite.

The fruit tastes sweet, though waxy, and slightly sour. Yellow liquid races down your chin and drips onto the floor, startling you with its sheer volume. Even more bizarre is that the floor absorbs the moisture almost instantly. You keep eating, scrutinizing the near-transparent, glistening orange flesh inside. Once the first is done, you pick another.

This time, you wander the room while eating, studying the other plants. You’re not too concerned over the fact that you cannot recall their names – lantern fruit appears plentiful. It’s a veritable jungle in here.

On the other side of the room, you find yet another closed door. Partially-eaten fruit in one hand, you pull open the heavy barrier to be, once again, taken aback. You are greeted by natural sunlight, salty air, and the sound of waves crashing against a sandy shore. Though you are mostly looking out towards the water, you spot rocky formations, lush vegetation, and the edge of a towering peak.

Island, your brain screams. Despite the welcome sight of solid land and the sun warming your bare shoulders, you know this is not Earth.

A hint of movement draws your eye. The creature is mostly eye itself, scuttling along on four sticklike legs. At about the same time you notice it, it notices you. Hissing and clicking, it charges you with quick, jerky motions. In your moment of fright, you drop the fruit, scrambling to get behind the door and close it. The door bangs shut, and you hear faint sounds of the hostile creature tapping against the outer layer of metal. Goosebumps rise along your arms as chilled air replaces the sunshine’s warm, though brief, kiss.

A louder thud against the locked door sends a shudder up your spine, and you throw yourself forward. Though the irate critter bangs and scratches, the hatch and its surrounding walls appear more than adequate to defend against the tiny assault. After a few minutes, the drumming stops, leaving only the gentle sigh of air circulation.

Appetite lost, you leave the forested room and ensure the dividing bulkhead closes and locks behind you. The second door across from the Aurora model is yet unexplored, and you are hesitant to do so. Another yell into the empty chambers receives no response, and you steel yourself to open the hatch.

Braced against the firm floor, and only opening the door a crack, you peer through. Upon seeing the floor and wall of another room, you slowly pull the door farther. It is another indoor garden, very much like the first. This time, you exercise more caution when looking around the room – peeking around planter beds and softening your footsteps. Unlike the first, this room does not have a second door leading to the outside.

Morale exhausted, you return to the main corridor of rooms, trying once more to find a single living person besides yourself. You call up and down the ladders, unsure how far the structure may extend beyond. Meeting Skye proved you were not the only one. She called it a “habitat,” assuming this is what she was referring to, and its size suggests there may be more than one person living here. If that’s the case, where are they?

You can’t go outside, and trying the ladders is a good way to add a concussion to your recent injuries. The air seems to grow colder, and you return to the room in which you awoke. The blankets help ward off the chill. You didn’t get here on your own. You simply had to trust that someone would come around eventually.

“Welcome aboard captain.”

The disembodied robotic voice startles you out of the firm bed. Until that time, you’d been staring at the ceiling and listening for the dull taps of alien creatures against the habitat’s outer shell. The prevailing silence in this place was nearly overwhelming, and you soon found yourself greatly anticipating the next click of tiny feet on the surrounding metal.

The floor is much colder than you were prepared for, and you drag the blankets off the bed to cover yourself. You listen, but you don’t hear any doors opening or closing, nor the beat of footsteps coming down the corridor. Even the evil little beasts outside have stilled.

“Hello?” you call. After a few moments, you realize you’ve been holding your breath. You receive no reply – robotic, human, or otherwise.

Another minute passes sitting in silence. The tension in your shoulders drains. Then you hear footsteps approaching, and the tension floods right back. You press yourself against the floor, hidden behind the bed as the sound grows closer.

The wheel handle spins. You brace yourself for aliens, for Crab People, for laser fire and space vacuums and unspeakable probing.

“Mark?”

The familiar voice pulls you from your worst-case scenario visions. With trembling fingers, you peek out over the bed.

“Oh good,” she says from the doorway. “I thought maybe you’d gone.”

It’s the same girl from before; you can tell by her face. Her attire, however, has changed. She is covered from neck to toe in gray, and a couple glowing panels throw sudden and pronounced shadows across the nearby walls.

“Give me a minute to change out of this suit, then I’ll be right back. I’ve got a lot to tell you about.”

True to her word, Skye does not up and vanish after she leaves your sight. She returns, this time dressed in black and orange, and pulls the sole chair over to the bed. Sitting down and telling you to prepare for what you are about to hear, she launches into her narrative.

She woke up on this marine planet inside a damaged lifepod, recalling flashbacks of a crash landing and alarms – much like the introduction to Subnautica. After a period of disbelief, she went into the water in search of food, water, and materials. Unlike you, she remembered a lot of things about the game. It helped her find resources, avoid danger zones, and start constructing the basic tools she would need to survive. Learning how to interface with the fabricator took some time, but she claims, “Thirst was a great motivator.” Eventually, she had to venture out farther, dive deeper, to find upgrades, new parts, and rare materials.

As she speaks, aspects of Subnautica’s storyline come filtering back to you as if they were a dream. The planet is under quarantine after the outbreak of a biological contagion. The alien race that originally inhabited the planet, known as “Precursors,” died out after unsuccessfully trying to find a cure. That cure still lies at the deepest part of the inhabited section of the planet, with the Sea Emperor and her eggs. Skye has not been there yet, but is confident that it is exactly where it was in the game.

When she originally received your pod’s distress signal, she was mining kyanite in preparation for the final push to the containment facility. She wouldn’t have come back at all had it not been for the signal’s origin – Lifepod Five. You didn’t understand the significance of that number before, but it becomes a lot clearer when she explains that her damaged lifepod was Lifepod Five. A thousand meters down, it took her a while to get back to the surface. And that’s when she found you.

She pauses to let the information sink in. She’s been here a long time – three months, by her estimates. That’s another thing: daylight lasts about eight hours on this planet, not counting eclipses, which happen quite often on account of a second moon located extremely close to the planet. Between the shorter day-night cycle, sudden eclipses, and the fact that she is now spending most of her time deep in the planet’s matrix of caves, keeping track of time is nearly impossible. She still uses the term “day” to refer to a rough twenty-four-hour sleep-wake cycle.

You want to know where she went when you woke up. Why wasn’t she here? She tells you that she went back to the Aurora. Despite having thoroughly explored the wreckage shortly after she arrived, she says that she wanted to see if anything else had “respawned,” citing your appearance and Lifepod Five’s reversion to its damaged state, which she re-repaired shortly after patching you up. The trip back to the Aurora proved to have been for naught, however, as she found the crashed ship unchanged from the last time she stepped foot inside its massive hull.

“Shame. I could’ve used the extra nutrient blocks. They’re incredibly convenient.”

Her whole tale still doesn’t sit right with you. Here she is, claiming to have explored the four corners of the map and crafted massive underwater bases and vehicles, while you barely made it out of the shallows in one piece. She mentioned respawn before – is that what happens if you “die?”

“Couldn’t tell you,” she says. “I’ve never tried it myself. Don’t really want to take that chance.” With this, she grows slightly somber. “My stay in this watery reality hasn’t been without hardships. There are things out here that are big enough to eat you in one bite, and I’ve gotten a little too close to that possibility a few times. So I took my time, made a lot of observations before going anywhere new, and retreated to safety if I was ever in doubt. I’ve been here a long, long time. Imagine my surprise when I discovered I wasn’t alone anymore.”

That would explain why she was so determined to keep you alive.

Incidentally, those adrenaline shots? Completely fake. The syringes contained little more than vitamins, hence their overall inefficacy in spite of the placebo effect. She has vitamin boosters and fast-acting sedatives, and reasoned it would be easier to fool you with vitamins. She succeeded.

When you accuse her of possibly being an NPC, she smacks your arm and accuses you of being an NPC. Though petulant, the display suggests that she is not, in fact, an NPC.

“So it’s real,” you say, though you’ve entertained the same thought perhaps a dozen times by now.

“Unfortunately, yes,” she says, folding her hands. “You mentioned that you didn’t recall much about the game when you first got here, but when I say ‘Cyclops’ or ‘Sea Emperor,’ you start to remember some of it. Well, I think there might be an explanation behind that, one linked to the Kharaa Bacterium.

“Ever since I got here, it’s been getting harder and harder to remember things. Things from before I got here, I mean. Short-term memory – just fine. My first few hours on this planet – I can still recall very vividly. But other things, from my life before? Maybe it’s just the fact that I’m no longer in that world, or because there’s been no one around to talk to about these things, but I’ve come to realize that I’ve lost big chunks of, well, everything. One day when I was resting, I just realized that I couldn’t remember things that I definitely remembered before. Does that make sense? I even remember _remembering_ those things, but not exactly what they were. Things like what my house looked like, my parents’ faces . . .”

“Your name?” you guess, recalling how she deflated and then bolted from the lifepod when you asked the first time.

She bows her head. “Yeah, that too.”

Hearing her confirm it makes you want to apologize for bringing it up.

“I guess, since I haven’t been using it, I just lost it somewhere along the way and didn’t notice it.”

“Do you think it was similar to ‘Skye?’” You ask, wanting to help. “Maybe it started with an S?”

“I picked ‘Skye’ because when I went outside and looked up, that’s what I saw. Ocean and sky. Terribly original, I know. I honestly have no recollection of what it could be.”

“But you remembered my name,” you argue.

She shrugs. “I remember your videos. I watched you play this game. At the time, it was little more than a wasted weekend, but I’m glad I did right about now.

“I dunno, it’s like the infection takes certain pieces of memory and leaves others alone. But, in case I’m wrong, I think it would be a good idea for you to take that PDA and write down everything you can remember about yourself. Get absolutely everything, even if it’s something you think you could never forget.” She retrieves the PDA from the counter and hands it to you. “I’ll teach you how to use that with the fabricator when you’re feeling up to it.”

You stare down at the small device in your hands. You were infected simply by breathing the air and swimming in the water. Now, you could lose your memories – pieces of yourself. Never mind what you might have lost already. Hopefully you won’t lose as big a piece as Skye’s. It’s not her real name. You can’t imagine being anyone other than Mark Edward Fischbach.

After helping you open a new entry page, she rises and says, “I’ll leave you to it.” Nearing the doorway, she turns and adds, “Oh, I forgot to mention. Your PDA may look a little different. I figured out how to duplicate my archived files from my PDA onto yours while you were unconscious. So everything I’ve scanned, and all the other PDAs I’ve come across are now on yours too. If you want to refamiliarize yourself with, essentially, this whole planet, that would probably be a good thing to do. But yeah, do _that_ first. Anything you can remember.”

“Where are you going?”

“I’m going to go take a nap,” she says. “Between making an emergency trip to the surface, finding you, and then going back to check out the Aurora, I am dead tired. Gotta make a bed first.”

“You don’t have a bed?” you ask.

She pauses. “I didn’t anticipate anyone else showing up, so I only made the one.”

You are embarrassed that it takes you until now to realize that there is only one bed in this base and what that implies.

“I won’t be far.”

She leaves you with a monumental task – document everything there is to know about yourself, or risk losing it.


	3. Get Back on Your Feet

You tap on the glowing blue display panel until your eyes start to blur. Your neck hurts from the angle you have to hold the knife-thin device, and you barely feel like you’ve scratched the surface of what you want to record. Significant events, conversations, and little-known facts flow onto the screen as fast as your fingers can form the words. It’s all important, isn’t it?

The door opens, and you look up as Skye steps in. Holding a makeshift plate, steamy wisps rise from the hot food she prepared. It even smells good.

“I see you’re still cracking away at it,” she says, slowing her approach. “That’s good. I, uhh. It probably wouldn’t hurt to take a break.”

She lowers the plate and you cannot get off the bed fast enough to escape the sight of the roasted monstrosity she offers you. Skin blue and bubbled, a giant orange eye stares at you like a moving painting.

Slightly stunned by your reaction, Skye’s face eventually settles on an embarrassed expression. “I thought you might want something to eat.”

“I did,” you reply. “Until that thing stared into my soul.”

With a small frown, she tilts the plate away from you. “Sorry. This looks normal to me, but you haven’t been here that long.”

The little voice that tells you when you’re being an asshole speaks up.

You say, “Hey, look I’m, I’m sorry. I really appreciate you bringing me something to eat. I appreciate _everything_ you’ve done for me so far. If it wasn’t for you, I’d be dead. Again, I really appreciate it.” You take another peek at the unfortunate fish on her plate. “I just don’t think I’m ready to eat anything that . . . that stares back.”

She nods with a timid smile. “I understand. Sorry for freaking you out, Stalker Bait. I’ll try something different.”

“You really don’t have to go through all that trouble,” you say, ashamed by your pickiness. “I can always just go grab some fruit.”

“It’s fine,” she says, heading for the door. “Anyway, you should be resting. I’ll bring you something less creepy.”

She returns a few minutes later with another plate. Instead of a whole creature, she offers you three distinct portions of thoroughly cut-up food. You recognize the lantern fruit right away by its waxy, orange flesh. Another pile appears to be a different, cream-colored vegetable. You have a sinking feeling that the final pile is fish – possibly even the same one. It has the appearance of shredded fish, almost like tuna, except for the slight green hue. Try as you might, you can’t power through more than a few bites of the alien fish before the thought of its giant eyeball overpowers your hunger. Skye insists you eat as much of it as you can, citing the Peeper’s smaller body size, something about its ability to fit through the alien vents, and how it contains the closest form of a natural resistance to the virus available on the surface. You offer to take care of the plate yourself, but she directs your attention back to the PDA with an encouragement to, “Rest.”

After a few days, or your approximation of a few days, the constant rest starts to wear on you. You’ve finished your grand memoir, and you definitely aren’t as interesting as you thought you were. Skye still brings you plates of well-disguised alien food, often joining you for meals, and you’ve taken to exploring the many data entries she transferred to your PDA. There’s enough information in the flora section alone to fill a fantasy novel, and you skim creature entries and passenger logs to rebuild your knowledge of Subnautica’s world.

Picking up on the less-than-subtle signs of your cabin fever, Skye offers to show you around the base and teach you how to interface the PDA with the fabricator. Though you previously explored on your own, her demonstration of touching the PDA’s edge to the lockers and digitally transferring their contents confirms your utter density. Each locker is almost completely empty. Besides a few pieces of titanium, the majority of the remaining contents are organic samples – seeds, broken pieces of coral, and plant cuttings.

The legion of empty lockers makes sense. At one point, this was her main base of operations. After getting a better feel for the aquatic world, she relocated to a more resource-rich environment that would provide a better starting point for her dive into the depths. The plant samples were left here in preparation for crafting the hatching enzymes, and because she couldn’t remember the exact samples required by the enzyme recipe, she grabbed at least one of everything. All the legwork was done. The portal to the Sea Emperor’s chamber was a little ways around the island, and once it was activated, a quick in-and-out would accomplish the main objective and begin the process of healing the planet.

She moves through the base slowly, narrating certain events tied to the various pieces she managed to collect or the rooms themselves.

“These posters were inside the Aurora.”

“It was storming when I put the finishing touches on these rooms. The power got knocked out.”

“I used to have a couple fish tanks here.”

She teaches you how to “download” items onto your PDA by activating an invisible beam and then holding the item inside that beam until it vanishes. Giving you the materials, she walks you through the steps to create a battery, and then shows you how to “summon” it out of your PDA. It’s hardly a surprise when the new battery appears and immediately drops to the floor, nearly landing on your foot.

“It’s a lot easier in the water,” Skye says, handing you the battery.

Then she asks if you want to go outside and have a look around.

You’re not too sure; those crab things are probably still outside.

“Cave Crawler,” she corrects you. “And don’t worry. I’ll be right next to you.”

A few taps on her PDA, and a hand-shaped machine appears in front of her. She catches it midair, holding it like a pistol. You still insist she goes first.

You watch from the open doorway as Skye traps the crabby crawlers in a gravity beam before launching them towards the horizon. They barely make a sound when they splash into the distant water. Her manic smile suggests that the activity is great fun, despite the creatures’ obviously murderous intent.

“Hey Stalker Bait, you wanna give it a try?” she inquires, holding the gun out towards you.

Despite your restlessness and the repetitiveness of the round rooms, the mere sight of the outside screams danger. You retreat inside, unable to put your reasoning into words.

The next day, after choking down a plate of salty fish and even saltier green leaves, Skye leads you back to the ladder connecting the “ground” floor to the one above. Arms trembling, you hoist yourself up into – surprise surprise – another round room filled with lockers. She guides you through one more room, this one with deep lines carved into the floor and a mess of items scattered about.

“Oh, that’s just the map room,” she says with a dismissive wave. “This is what I wanted you to see.”

She opens the bulkhead to a glittering glass sphere. A full-sized room big enough to stand in, you enter. The ocean stretches out before you, shimmering with golden light as the sun sits high on the horizon. Turning around, the island’s craggy peaks tower overhead, dense jungle lining their surfaces. Pressing yourself up against the warm shell, you can see the rest of the habitat’s chambers connected like misshapen pearls on a necklace. Using the mental map you’ve constructed over the last few days, you deduce that the multipurpose room directly below your feet is the fourth locker room containing the top of the incredibly tall ladder.

Despite the many horrors saturating this alien planet, it isn’t so bad from inside the glass room.

Skye joins you and, gesturing to the water before you, says, “There’s another observation room down there. But you can’t see much more than open ocean from that one.”

Eyes following her pointed finger, you locate the dim glow of lights under the water’s surface. Skye told you about the submerged portion of the base a while ago, since you still don’t trust yourself to tackle the multistoried ladder. Extending through eight underwater layers of multipurpose rooms, there are a couple water filtration units, a moonpool, a scanner room, another observation room, and a backup generator that runs on organic material. A massive aquarium stretches through seven of these vertical layers. It once held a wide variety of the alien species found on this planet, but ever since she moved her main base elsewhere, it serves as a steady source of her dietary staple: Peepers.

Even though you knew there was an observation deck up here, the incredible view is unexpected.

You ask, “Is the sun rising or setting?”

“Setting,” she says. “But that isn’t the west. And the sun doesn’t always set in the same direction, so don’t rely on it too heavily for navigation. I don’t know, it probably has something to do with the planet’s rotation or its path around the star.”

“It almost makes you forget everything out there wants to kill you,” you say.

“Not everything,” she chides. “But I know what you mean.”

You take a few more minutes to enjoy the bright palette of this alien world before returning to the map room. Skye explains how the rough outline in the floor represents the various environment types and their location relative to each other. What originally appeared to be a random junk explosion turns out to serve as markers for a plethora of mineral deposits and other useful materials according to the biome in which each may be found. Despite the PDA’s nearly unlimited computing power, sketching and annotating a map proved beyond its capabilities, hence the room-sized miniature version. Skye says she had plans to recreate a more accurate version at her next base, but by the time she concluded the move, she had no need of a map room – all the information existed in her head.

She describes each section of the map with great fervor, pulling up entries on her PDA to highlight odd-looking creatures or rare corals. Listening to her speak makes you realize how lonely she must have been. Now that she has someone to talk to, she can’t seem to stop.

“This is the crevice leading to the Lost River,” she says, pointing.

Compared to where you currently are – on the quarantine enforcement island – the proposed entry point is on the opposite side of the map.

“There are a few other caves that go down there, and it’s the smallest of the bunch, but we won’t have to contend with some of the more dangerous creatures if we take this route. I constructed the Cyclops just on the other side of this island and took it down a crater over there, but I wouldn’t try that route with a Seamoth. That’s what we’ll be taking, by the way, just as soon as I collect enough materials for a second ship, plus upgrades, we’ll be well on our way to-”

“Whoa, wait,” you interrupt her. “I am _not_ going down there.”

“What do you mean? All we have to do is make the last leg to the containment facility with the Sea Emperor. I know where it is.”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I am _terrified_ of the ocean,” you say, jabbing your finger towards the observation deck. “I’m man enough to admit it – I’m terrified. And after nearly getting ripped apart by a Stalker, what you claim is one of the _smallest_ and _least-deadly_ creatures on this planet, I’ll be happy to never go near a body of water ever again.”

“But . . . Mark,” she stammers, clearly not expecting opposition.

“No.”

“All we-”

“No!”

She pauses, the line of her brow oscillating up and down – stunned and placating, then contemplative and determined, then back again. After a few moments, her shoulders sink.

“Okay. I understand. I can’t force you to go with me.” She turns, then looking over her shoulder, adds, “Do you need help getting down the ladder?”

And that’s the worst part – you still need help climbing down, and Skye patiently waits at the bottom of the ladder and rushes forward when one of your feet slip. You make it down safely but ashamed; you hoped your strength would have returned by now.

Skye leaves shortly after your disagreement. Off to gather more materials, no doubt. Between that and sleeping, she appears to do little else.

A storm rolls in while she is away. It’s your first, and though you trust the integrity of the habitat, you are grateful to see Skye return. She prepares a couple Peepers for dinner – yours well-shredded, hers plain – and sits with you to eat. The sight of the alien fish still disturbs you, but as long as you don’t look too closely at her plate, it’s bearable.

The two of you eat without speaking as the beating wind fills the silence.

“Are you mad at me?” you ask.

She looks up midbite. “No. Just thinking.”

“You seem mad,” you press.

Skye sighs and sets down her knife. She once joked that cutlery wasn’t on the list of items included in the fabricator’s “standard survival blueprints,” hence eating off a flattish piece of scrap metal with the same blade she uses to kill sea creatures and bust open mineral deposits. You have your own knife, of course. You even crafted it yourself.

“I’m not mad at you,” she says. “Like I said, I understand the reason for your decision. I anticipated needing to construct an additional Seamoth and Prawn Suit so you could make the journey with me. Now I just need to readjust my plans back to going alone. I’m just, let down I guess.”

“I’m sorry,” you offer. “Even if I could, I wouldn’t be much use to you down there. You’re obviously way more experienced at this than I am. Ever since you found me, you’ve practically had to take care of me. If I went, I’d just slow you down, and probably get us both killed. I don’t want that.”

“And you think I do? Never mind alone, you think I want to go down there at all?” She pauses for a moment, then lowers her tone. “This disease _will_ kill us. Slowly. Just like it did to the previous inhabitants of this planet. I know you haven’t started to feel it yet, but I don’t have as much time to get the cure. I need to get down there and get those eggs hatched. The sooner the better.”

You remain silent, knowing full well that you need the cure as much as she does and you cannot offer any assistance to get it.

The wind picks up, then you hear a thud against the habitat’s exterior. It sounds like a tree branch.

Skye clears her throat. “My main base is on the other side of the entrance to the Lost River, in the Sea Treader’s area. It’s bigger, well-supplied, and in one of the safest areas I’ve found. Nothing messes with Sea Treaders. It’s far from the radiation around the crash zone too. I’ll stop there to make my final preparations for the trip. Even if you don’t want to go with me, I’d still suggest moving to that base.”

“That’s really far,” you say, recalling the map she constructed.

“I’d make you your own Seamoth. Depth modules, hull reinforcement, defense upgrades. I’d probably have to pull that one from my Seamoth; don’t think I can find all the materials around here. You wouldn’t even get wet, and I’ll be right beside you the whole time.”

You nod, thinking. “What happens when you reach the Sea Emperor? At least here, I’m close to the portal.”

“I’ll come get you,” she replies. “Trust me, you’d be better off in the other base.”

Your reluctance stretches the pause between you. You trust her enough to come and get you. The only problem is getting there, and then getting back.

“At least think about it?” she asks. “I’d feel much better if I knew you were somewhere safe.”

“I’ll think about it,” you promise.


	4. Get Your Priorities Straight

It doesn’t take much to convince you which choice is better. Two nights later, you hear the roar of a Reaper Leviathan.

Climbing down the first two levels of the incredibly tall ladder, you reach the top of the colossal aquarium. You take a quick peek into the moonpool, confirming Skye’s Seamoth is docked, before setting off for her “bedroom” through the opposite doorway. She used to sleep on the layer between the ground level and the aquarium, but the sounds of the water purifiers kept waking her up.

“Skye?” you call, knocking on the bulkhead door.

“What?” she answers, her way of saying “come in.”

After pushing open the heavy door and rounding the silent bioreactor, you come to stand by Skye’s bed. She’s sitting up, rubbing her eyes. It was only weird when you initially learned she slept in her dive suit.

“Did you hear that?” you ask.

“Yeah, sounds like a Reaper,” she replies, seemingly unfazed.

“But, it sounded pretty close, right?”

“They normally stick to the other side of the island. But it’s not unusual for them to wander over here. Go back to sleep.”

You glance into the scanner room on your way around the bioreactor, but the chamber is mostly dark. As you round the aquarium on your way to the ladder, you consider looking out through the attached observation deck. The sight of blue nothingness used to unnerve you – so did the aquarium and the Peepers swimming around a column of green Creepvine – but not as much anymore. Like she said before, you can’t see much from that observation deck.

You have your hands on the ladder and your foot on the first rung when a muffled bang echoes up from the levels below you. The habitat vibrates in time with the sound.

“Skye?” you shout.

“Go to bed,” she shouts back.

Her apathy is what ultimately convinces you. The next morning, after getting less than a couple hours of sleep, you tell her that you’re willing to make the switch to the safer base.

“Oh good,” she says, half occupied with clearing out her PDA inventory. “You can listen to Sea Treaders humping.”

Her words inspire boundless confidence. Despite the jab, she sits you in her docked Seamoth that afternoon and goes over the various controls. There aren’t too many buttons to press, and she eventually transitions into a long-winded rant regarding the technology that allows people to enter submerged vehicles or seabases while keeping the majority of the water out. She theorizes that such entryways are equipped with a sort of force field generator, similar to the shield on the Cyclops, and that the force fields themselves are a conglomeration of physical net-like barrier components and penetrable strands of pure energy. She cites the increased power draw of leaving a door open for too long as well as the visual appearance of these near-transparent walls. Any water that does manage to slip by immediately drains through the semi-porous floor.

On the following day, Skye leaves to find the remaining components to construct your Seamoth. Because mineral deposit “respawn” isn’t a built-in feature of this alien world, she must go farther and spend more time searching for the formerly plentiful resources.

She doesn’t return for over twenty-four hours, so you keep yourself occupied by tending to your “chores” of collecting water and salt from the filtration machines to keep them producing, storing the water and salt in separate lockers, and cutting up fruit for meals – always making an extra portion in case Skye shows up. You practice summoning items out of your PDA and then catching them. After putting a large dent in the floor, you move your endeavors to the map room, where mistakes won’t be as noticeable. You shatter a piece of salt.

Since you still spend a fair amount of time reading through data entries on your PDA, you add exercise to your list of chores. Push-ups, sit-ups, squats, lunges – it feels good to get back to some semblance of your old fitness routine. You try jogging in a circle around the aquarium, but the size of the room makes the circle too tight and you end up slightly nauseated. Eventually, you find yourself in a staring contest with one of the stationary Peepers in the large tank. It takes you much too long to realize that said Peeper is, in fact, dead.

You’re walking past the dented floor after another trip to the water filters when inspiration strikes. Angling your PDA up to the ceiling, you summon your tool of choice and manage to not drop it. If you repair the damaged floor before Skye gets back, she won’t know about it.

Holding the business end up to the dent, you depress the trigger. After a few seconds of glowing and sizzling, you take the device away. The floor doesn’t look any better – in fact it looks worse. Reddened, melted plastic-composite material pools in the indentation.

“The fuck?”

You try again.

“Warning: hull breach imminent.” Then, “Emergency: hull breach detected.”

“No, no no no no!” You see daylight through the floor. “Why does that make it worse?”

The repair tool must be malfunctioning, and you place it back in your PDA’s inventory to check its power level. You squint at the small text.

“Laser cutter? Laser cutter? What the fuck?” you exclaim, pitch rising with each word.

A yellow, wiggly thing bursts through the hole in the floor and you leap back with another unmanly shriek.

Hands on your head, you shout, “Jesus, fucking, crab crawlers!”

Like a cat sticking its paw under a door, the aggressive little creature flails its pointed claw in an attempt to grab anything that gets too close, hissing and chittering all the while. Since the base sits on stilt-like supports, you are not surprised it managed to fit underneath.

You summon a repair tool and wait, but the tenacious little beast is tenacious.

You chuckle. “I wonder if I can repair the floor with your leg sticking through it.” Careful to stay out of its reach, you aim the device and press the trigger.

No effect. Your PDA reads, “Error: Cannot repair organic material.”

You wind up kicking and stomping on the intruding appendage until a part of it, inevitably, snaps off.

“Fuck. You. Fuck. You. Fuck. Fuck. Oh my geez! Oh no! What is that? Oh no, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean . . . Wait, why am I apologizing to you? Get the fuck out.”

You successfully repair the floor.

“Hull integrity restored.”

“Oh geez, it’s still moving! Noooo!”

It twitches. You shriek. You drop it. This happens two more times before you manage to toss it into the moonpool.

You’re jogging the base’s longest stretch – between your bedroom and the ladder leading down – when you hear the moonpool’s docking arms activate.

“Welcome aboard captain.”

Your hands are so sweaty, you nearly lose your grip on the ladder. Meeting Skye in the moonpool, you abandon your standard greeting and instead ask, “What happened to the Seamoth?”

Skye’s typical Seamoth somewhat resembles one of those black and white whales (you could neither remember nor agree upon what it was called), with a black roof and a white bottom. She claims it helps with camouflage.

“What do you mean? Mine’s outside, this is yours. Still has that new Seamoth smell too.”

You explore the new vehicle together. Since she doesn’t have all the necessary components to upgrade the craft, she will have to go out again tomorrow. She says you can still take it for a spin, but you’d rather hold off until it is equipped with a perimeter defense module and a depth module.

“Oh, Skye, Skye,” you say excitedly. “I forgot to mention. While you were gone, an eyeball crab got into the base.”

She pauses, frowning. “You mean a Cave Crawler?”

“Yeah, that’s what I said.”

“Really? How? Did it crawl up through the moonpool?” she asks.

“That’s not really relevant,” you mumble. “But the point is that I removed the intruder and defended the base.”

She looks you over as if trying to determine if your tall tale is valid or if she should even care in the first place. At length, she replies, “Oh, well, good for you, Stalker Bait.”

The validation is gratifying, even if you had to practically ask for it.

“You hungry? I’m at twenty-two, and if I wait much longer, this thing’ll start yelling at me,” she says, checking her PDA in a flash.

“Sure, I could eat,” you reply, following her out. “As long as you don’t try to sneak an eyeball onto my plate like last time.”

“They’re highly nutritious and help slow the infection’s spread,” she argues. “You’ll get over this squeamish phase eventually. I did.”

“Not likely.” Suddenly incensed, you fumble your PDA until you are holding it in front of her face. “Hey, hey! What’s this? These are schematics for vending machines and a coffee station! Why don’t we have any of these? Do you know how long I’ve been without coffee?”

“Did you try building one?” she asks.

“No.”

“If you had, you would’ve known that those schematics only allow you to construct the actual machine part of the vending machine. It doesn’t come stocked with food. Or coffee.”

You drop to your knees, the PDA held in front of you.

“I feel so betrayed.”

“Don’t be dramatic,” she says, hands on her hips. “You know you can’t live without Koosh soup.”

You gag.

After a big meal during which Skye eats not one, but two cooked Peepers, she leads you to the map room to go over the route you’ll take to get to her main base.

“This is an offshoot of the Sea Treader’s path that extends into the dunes, here. The base itself is roughly two hundred meters down, but we’ll equip your Seamoth with a three hundred depth module just to be safe.” Using her knife as a pointer, she gestures to a nearby area. “This is where the Bloodvines grow. The crevice that I use to get to the Lost River is farther down here.

“If we stay relatively close to the surface, we can take a straight path almost all the way there. We’ll dive deeper once we hit this green reef, here. It’s very empty, so we shouldn’t run into any trouble. Then we’ll swing around and follow the curve of the Bloodvine area all the way to the base.

“Incidentally, that’s the same path you’ll want to take in case anything happens and you need to get out quick. Not saying that anything’ll happen! But _if_ something does, go this way.

“It’s a safe area overall, but it’s surrounded by big bad things on all sides. Reapers and Sand Sharks in the dunes, Ghost Leviathans past the drop off here, and a bunch of smaller, nasty things hiding in the blood kelp. As long as you’re not on the edge of their territory, they shouldn’t cross the biome line.

“If something goes wrong, the other island is right here. It’s solid land and still has some shelter and food left behind by the Degasi survivors, so it’s better than nothing.”

You look up, unimpressed. “Doesn’t sound safe.”

“I promise you, it is,” she replies. “Besides, you’re going to spend the entire time inside, so you’ve got nothing to worry about.”

She looks away. Clearly, your reluctance to join her on the pivotal quest to meet the Sea Emperor is still a sore topic. She just doesn’t understand your deep-seated fear, your propensity to screw things up, and your all-around lack of experience. She’ll be better off without you, and you’ll be better off closer to the surface. You conceded to moving to a base two hundred meters under the water – what more can she reasonably expect from you?

A tapping sound draws your attention to the observation deck. Standing closer, Skye goes to the door, looks out, then closes it.

“What was it?” you ask.

“Cave Crawler,” she replies. “Strange thing is, it only had three legs.”

You wince, but she doesn’t seem too interested.

“Anyway, I’ll build a second moonpool once we get there so we can dock both of our Seamoths,” she continues. “It should only take me a few days to get everything I want to bring with me ready. In particular, I’d like to get a lot more coral tube samples. With all that salt you gathered, I can make a ton of bleach for disinfected water. I’ve got a few growing in growbeds, but not quite as much as I’d like to have.”

“How far away are these coral tubes?” you ask.

“Not too far,” she replies, pointing to the map. “I’ll probably just go back to the shallows here around Lifepod Five where the giant tubes are. Hmm, I may have to make two trips.”

Your trajectory to her second base passes directly through these shallow waters, so you suggest, “Why don’t we just get them on the way?”

“Not enough inventory space. We’re gonna fill up before we leave here. I didn’t anticipate you wanting to stop.”

You nod. “Alright. Makes sense.”

“Speaking of which, all I need to make another Seamoth depth module is a few more pieces of quartz. I should be able to find some in the caves underneath the floating islands, but I’m really scraping the bottom of the barrel.

“I wanted to make a couple solar charger modules for your Seamoth, but it was just an extra thing and you’ll definitely have more than enough power to make it to the other base. Besides, I thought hull reinforcement was more important. From there you can just switch power cells out of the charger if you wanted to take the Seamoth out.”

“What about the perimeter defense module?” you ask.

“I’m going to pull the one from my Seamoth and give it to you,” she says, concentrating on the map. “I can make another one with the materials at the main base, but there isn’t enough gold and silver left around here to make one now. I’m not worried about it. So, ready to go later tomorrow?”

“Sure. Is there anything you want me to do?”

“Huh? Oh, I guess you can fill your PDA with the stuff we want to take. Don’t forget about the storage compartment on your Seamoth either. Water, salt, maybe take a shower to use up some of the water, basically anything not plant based. If you’d like, you can move the stuff you can’t carry into an empty locker. That way, when I get back with the quartz, I can just craft the depth module, load it into your Seamoth, grab the rest of the stuff, and then we can go.”


	5. Get Back in the Water

While Skye takes a lengthy power nap, you occupy yourself with organizing supplies as requested. You also take the opportunity to customize your Seamoth’s colors – black on top, blue on the bottom. It’s familiar in a way you can’t put your finger on. While you wait, you reread sections from your impromptu autobiography, periodically adding thoughts as they pop up.

When Skye leaves, you strip down to have a “shower” in the middle of the floor. The fragmented shoulder cap from a Prawn Suit serves as your basin as you scrub yourself down.

Skye hardly ever bathes – not since you met her at least. Since she spends most of her time in the water anyway, being clean isn’t really a priority, especially when there are more pressing uses for fresh water.

As you scrub, you inspect the smattering of thin, silvery scars left behind by the Stalker attack. The wound has healed nicely, with the help of the advanced medical kits salvaged from the Aurora, but the scars may never fade.

It’s only as you finish showering that the fact hits you – you’re about to go outside, in the ocean, where the dangerous creatures are. Stuck inside a tiny craft, in a sea filled with literal _leviathans_ , unable to see the sun, a million things could go wrong.

“Welcome aboard captain.”

You’re pacing the floor by the time Skye returns. Once again, you notice her change in apparel.

“What’s with the suit?” you ask.

“This is the standard environment protection suit,” she replies. “Here, put this on.”

She summons an item out of her PDA and you fumble to catch the flimsy bundle.

“Isn’t this yours?” you ask, eyeing the familiar black and orange pattern.

“C’mon, it’s one-size-fits-all and it has built-in protective layers.” She pauses. “You need to wear a suit. Just in case.”

You turn it over in your hands, feeling the nervous energy building up once again.

“I thought you’d prefer that to the stillsuit, since you didn’t seem too keen on drinking filtered pee.”

“Yeah, no thank you,” you agree.

“Well good, ‘cause I don’t have everything I need to make a second stillsuit,” she says, throwing up her hands. “I already installed the dive module in your Seamoth. Which locker did you put the stuff in? Oh, this one. So, are you ready to go?”

“No,” you reply, causing her to turn around. “But I’m going to do it anyway, before I think about it too much and wind up backing out.”

“Well good. Are you hungry? A little? Then grab some fruit and we’ll be on our way.”

You pivot to head to the garden, then stop. “My inventory is full.”

“With your hands, Stalker Bait. Hold it in your hands. It’s alright, I still think with my PDA more often than not.”

Skye helps you into the reinforced suit, and then into your Seamoth. The rebreather mask makes you feel even more claustrophobic, but she insists you wear it, along with a lightweight oxygen tank.

She stands on the moonpool’s edge in front of your Seamoth.

“Mark, can you hear me?” she asks through your PDA. The sound plays inside the mask.

“Yes, I can hear you,” you reply.

“Okay, leave the communication channel open. I’m going to get in my Seamoth. Are you okay in there?”

You want to say no, but instead settle on, “How do I leave the channel open?”

“Oh. Press the communication button three times. It should stay lit.”

You do so.

“Good?” she asks.

“Yeah, I’m good,” you reply.

“Alright. Back in a bit.”

She dives into the water like it’s easy. A few droplets splash up and land on the Seamoth’s glass.

“Can you still hear me?” you ask.

“I can hear you,” she replies. “Just swimming over to my Seamoth.”

You listen to her breathing until you hear a faint, “All systems online.”

“Are there any Reapers out there?” you ask.

“Nothing but blue water. I’m getting into position now.”

You close your eyes. Your heart is pounding.

“Alright, make sure your automatic stabilizer is on.”

Your hands shake.

“Blue button, third down from the top left,” she offers.

“Yes, it’s on,” you reply, eyeing the glowing button.

“Alright. Disengage the docking clamps with the docking button and we’ll be good to go.”

“Heart rate: elevated,” your PDA chimes in your ear.

“Are you sure?” you say loudly.

“Yes, I’m sure. Remember, hands off the propulsion controls.”

“Are you out of the way?”

The water below the Seamoth churns gently.

“Heart rate: elevated. Deep breathing recommended.”

“Just push the button!”

You push the button. For a split second, you are airborne, and your heart stops beating. The lantern fruit rises from your lap. Then you hit the water. It’s the single most frightening thing you’ve experienced since escaping the Stalker’s mouth. Water rushes up and instantly covers the craft, and the world goes blue.

“All systems online.”

The Seamoth’s stabilizers engage and bring you to a stop. Below you, an ever-darkening column of water stretches alongside the island’s edge.

“Skye?” you shout.

“Normal voice. I can hear you just fine.”

“I’m freaking out over here!”

“Oh brother.”

She maneuvers her Seamoth in front of yours. You can barely see her in what little morning light manages to filter through the water.

“Mark? Mark, focus. I’m right here. You’re not drowning.”

“This was a bad idea,” you whine.

“Let’s go up to the surface,” she suggests. “Wait for me to get out of the way first, then right controller forward.”

“Oh, I hate the ocean. I hate the ocean.”

Once she gets out of the way and gives you the go-ahead, you press forward on the control stick and the Seamoth surges ahead.

“Gently,” she admonishes. “Try again.”

The Seamoth moves forward at a leisurely pace.

“Good. You’re clear of the moonpool, now back on the left control stick. Gently. Keep your right stick going forward.”

Your gentle pull on the left controller doesn’t have any effect at first. You keep pulling it down further until your nose eventually tilts up and you head for the surface. With her coaching, you release the controllers and the Seamoth stabilizes itself to sit with the waves occasionally lapping over the glass window.

You sit for a few moments as Skye positions herself nearby.

“Doing any better?” she asks.

“Not really,” you reply. “A little.”

“Well good,” she says. “Shall we go?”

It takes time. Your apprehension of being in the water lessens as your familiarity with the Seamoth’s steering controls increase. You only bump into Skye once, after which she brings you both to a halt, gets out to repair both crafts, and then returns to her Seamoth. It’s the first time you’ve really seen her swim – not counting catching Peepers for dinner, which is more of a frantic affair in a small, enclosed space. Her legs beat slowly as she holds the repair tool to her Seamoth’s dented rear. She looks so at ease, comfortable even. She was alone. You wonder, had it been you, if you would have been able to get used to it to the same extent.

At first, you merely follow behind the black and white Seamoth. Skye eventually drops back as you become more sure of yourself. She drives circles around you, occasionally giving you directions to adjust slightly to the left or to the right. Whatever landmarks or advanced technology or multitudinous repetition she is using to navigate, you’re glad she knows how to get there.

Far below you, the ground changes. Vibrant colors announce each biome as it passes. You even see the tall kelp forests on a couple occasions.

“Mark, hold up,” her voice sounds over your PDA.

The Seamoth slows to a stop when you release the controls. You were too busy paying attention to the changing ocean floor, you failed to notice the group of giant Reefbacks floating directly in your path. One releases a long, wailing cry, which sets off the others. The sound is nearly deafening, and you have to ask Skye to repeat herself.

“I said let’s go down here. We can go under the Reefbacks.”

“You said we wanted to wait till we reached the green reef to go deeper.” The ocean floor is covered in a blanket of feathery plants, all a deep red color.

“It’s not that far. We’ll just have to be careful of Sand Sharks and maybe go faster.”

“Sand Sharks?” you echo, unsure of the proposal, but Skye is already leading the way down. With a few select words muttered under your breath, you have little choice but to follow.

She goes slow so you can catch up. You watch the depth monitor steadily increase, hyperaware of your hands on the control rods. The ground comes up quickly, despite the Seamoth’s stabilizers fighting against your downward angle. You overcompensate on the release.

Running parallel at ninety meters, a shadow encompasses you and your Seamoth. You look up.

The massive scale of the Reefbacks was not apparent to you before. Each is the size of a large house, with three giant tentacles trailing behind. The underside slowly undulates in time with the enormous siphon propelling it steadily onward. Bioluminescent bulbs grow where the tentacles connect to the main body.

By the time you pass under the group, the red grass below you has thinned out considerably.

“We’re entering the green zone,” Skye relays, positioning herself beside you. “Make sure to give yourself enough maneuvering room.”

The water grows murkier the farther you go. Spine-like rock formations shoot out of the ocean floor like a forest; you steer the Seamoth over them. Despite the green hue tinting this biome, there are very few signs of life. Stubborn corals cling to the few habitable spots on the rocky matrix, and occasionally you catch a glimpse of a small fish darting back into a dark crevice. Compared to everywhere else, this area is dead.

The lack of sea creatures, big or small, sets off quiet alarms in your head, and you ask Skye if she’s sure it’s safe here.

“Yeah, this is one of the safest zones I’ve found so far. I almost built my base here.”

“Why didn’t you?” you ask.

“Tiger Plants,” she answers simply.

Skye guides you until tall, white plants come into view.

“There’s the Bloodvines,” she says. “We’re going to follow along the edge of their biome when they curve up here, but keep your distance.”

Skye climbs higher and you follow. The vines seem to give off a pale glow, and despite the dappled water shadows that dance in the surface’s current, they neither flutter nor sway.

The turn comes sooner than you expected, and the water abruptly clears.

“Sea Treaders, dead ahead,” Skye announces.

Large, three-legged creatures move along a smooth, sand-covered patch of ground. Each step appears to be taken in slow motion, and reverberates with a low thump. Though not quite as huge as the giant Reefbacks, the Sea Treaders are many times bigger than your little Seamoth. A single black, beady eye is the size of your head.

Skye dives down to duck and weave between their towering legs, and the creatures bellow in indignation. You watch on in disbelief. Though the Seamoth easily avoids their swaying limbs, one direct hit could severely damage the light craft.

“C’mon Stalker Bait,” she calls. “Open up those thrusters and we’ll make the last stretch in record time. Keep an eye out for the base.”

You push the thrusters forward with great apprehension, but the sea floor is remarkably flat – no giant rock formations or sudden cliffs. The Seamoth hums as you check the battery level. Seventy-six percent remaining.

“There it is. Mind the Bloodvines.”

Avoiding a protruding grove of the ghost white plants, the area opens to a large plateau. Situated in the middle is the base.

It is an impressive structure, with towering, multi-leveled multipurpose rooms and numerous observatories. Glass windows show glimpses inside, while transparent walkways connect the branching compartments. Situated along the ocean floor, a handful of platforms provide a flat surface for a vast garden of growbeds. Each bed contains a variety of corals, kelp, mushrooms, and other flora.

You locate the moonpool off to the side, and Skye walks you through engaging the docking button, communicating with the moonpool that your Seamoth is inbound. You gently ease your Seamoth under the moonpool. The docking arm all but rips you out of the water, and your hatch opens automatically.

“A new crewmember has boarded the habitat.”

“Alright, I’m in,” you say, taking off your helmet and switching your PDA comms to external only.

“Good. What’s the power level like in there?”

“Hold on, still synching,” you reply, toggling through the holographic menus. “Uh, power’s fine. Almost at full capacity.”

“Great,” she says over the habitat’s automatic voice welcoming her. You jump at her sudden appearance behind you. “Let’s go unload our PDAs into the nearest available locker, I’ll get the stuff I need to build a second moonpool, then we’ll be all set.”

You wander the winding pathways and abundance of rooms as Skye attends to expanding the base from the outside. It is similar to the previous base in the sense that there is a limited quantity of buildable equipment to choose from; it is different in the sense that there is much more of it. Multiple rooms dedicated to water purification, an entire section dedicated to indoor growbeds and arranged according to plant species, and an exponential amount of storage rooms with nothing but lockers. You still find only one bed.

The habitat announces Skye’s entrance.

Despite its grandiose presence when viewed from the outside, you find that the majority of the base is laid out on a single level – probably easier on the hands and knees to avoid constantly climbing ladders. Apart from a couple chambers with bioreactors and a handful of observation decks, the only sections that stretch through multiple floors are the giant aquariums – “alien containment” Skye calls them. There are at least eight of these multi-storied enclosures, with a wide variety of alien creatures in each one. One even contains a tiny Reefback, and you marvel at its miniature stature.

Eventually, you manage to wander back to the moonpool, where Skye is currently unloading your Seamoth’s storage compartment.

“You should have let me do that.”

“I figured you’d want to explore,” she replies with a shrug. “I’m glad to see you didn’t get lost.”

“I may have got turned around once or twice,” you admit.

“Well, you’ll have plenty of time to learn your way around. Though hopefully I won’t take too long, and then we can start the construction of the rocket.”

Skye originally told you about the Neptune Escape Rocket when you were on bed rest. It’s the ultimate endgame, and a massive construction project requiring copious amounts of resources. Skye already found the blueprints for the launch pad and added them into your PDA, but there’s no point in building it right now. That massive containment-enforcing weapon would shoot you out of the sky if you tried to escape the planet. No, the cure comes first. Without it, it’s a waste of time and energy, and delays your treatment.

But sitting and waiting around for Skye to return with the cure doesn’t sit right with you. You’re too much of a coward to go with her. Still, you want to help.

“What if I,” you propose, “started building the rocket while you were gone?”

She turns her attention on you. “You’d do that? It would mean going outside, in the water.”

“You said it was safe here. I’ll take it slow.”

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” she says kindly. “Besides, you probably won’t have all the materials you need. I don’t remember the exact quantities, and the only way to find out is by building the dumb thing. It can wait, really.”

“I want to do _something_ ,” you argue. “I feel bad just sitting here while you do . . . everything else.”

“If you want, you could practice in the containment tanks,” she suggests. “There’s nothing in there that can hurt you, and you can get used to being in the water.”

“Yeah, I’ll try that,” you say, nodding.

She places her hand on your shoulder. “And hey, if it doesn’t happen, don’t worry about it. With any luck, I’ll make it to the Sea Emperor’s chamber and have the ingredients to make the hatching enzymes. I’ve survived on this planet a long while. So have you. We’ve got time.”


	6. Get Settled In

Though your scenery changes, routines continue. Skye spends most of her time out hunting for resources. Whenever she’s back at the base, she’s sleeping or eating. Though you encourage her to slow down and take a break, her haste is plain to see – she even puts less effort into disguising your cooked Peepers, and you gradually get used to seeing a more fishy shape on your plate.

Sometimes, she stops at the base just long enough to reach you over the PDA. She tells you that she dumped her inventory into a certain locker and asks you to use the materials to craft an item that she needs, like a power cell or a wiring kit. You are more than happy to help in any way you can, and grateful for her efforts to make you feel useful, but you still wish she’d stick around longer.

Swimming in the alien containment chambers is a new experience for you. After putting on the reinforced dive suit Skye gave you, and then equipping yourself with a set of fins and an oxygen tank, you do your best to maneuver yourself into the towering aquarium.

The fish inside give you strange looks as you flounder around. The bulky equipment and narrow space makes it difficult to stay upright, and you almost run out of oxygen before managing to pull yourself through the access port.

When you tell Skye about your inept attempt, she encourages you to try without the extra equipment. You express disbelief, so she demonstrates.

She climbs into the alien containment chamber and effortlessly floats, suspended in the water column. Boomerangs and Bladderfish swim around her as she tucks in her limbs and closes her eyes. It almost looks like she’s meditating.

After at least a full minute inside the tank, she calmly and fluidly moves over to the hatch and climbs out.

“I used to do that all the time,” she says, breathing deeply. “Sitting still inside a tank like that. It was very calming. The outside’s not like that at all. You have to be constantly on alert, and always moving. I know that I liked swimming . . . before. It’s nice to be in the water and just be. It helped me focus, especially when I thought I couldn’t do something.”

On one of the occasions that Skye doesn’t return to the base for a good amount of time, you resolve to take your Seamoth out. Not to go looking for her, but merely to get comfortable doing so.

You load freshly charged power cells into the Seamoth the same way you saw Skye do with hers. Fully equipped and mentally prepared, you board the craft and close the hatch. This time, you brace yourself before releasing the docking clamps.

The Seamoth splashes into the water and stabilizes itself. For a few moments, you merely sit there, holding your breath.

“All systems online.”

The water is darker than last time, and you cannot see anything. You cautiously inch forward and then remember your exterior lights. They illuminate tiny particles floating through their beams, but otherwise, show nothing new. You go slow, thankful for the bright square above pinpointing the moonpool’s location.

You see Bloodvines and immediately reverse your thrusters. Maybe this isn’t such a good idea. You’re safe in the Sea Treader’s path, but there’re dangerous things just a short ways away. But all water looks the same, and so, you head down towards the sea floor. A few meters off the bottom, the tightly compacted sand and sparse patches of sea grass clearly denote the bounds of safety. You are quite proud of your solution, and meander to and fro, following the occasional Spadefish that crosses your path.

Then you find the Sea Traders. For a while you let the Seamoth idle as you watch the leviathan-class creatures plod along, occasionally stopping to eat or defecate. It’s such a mundane thing, yet you can’t bring yourself to look away.

They appear to be a family group, with at least a dozen or so individuals. A few of the Sea Treaders are smaller in size, and probably juveniles. They make low, rumbling sounds at each other.

You follow along with brief sideways motions, though it appears they do not care for your light. They look up and bellow at you whenever they get caught in your beams. You switch it off, expecting to see little more than dark silhouettes.

To your amazement, the Sea Treaders glow with bright orange speckles that run the length of their spindly bodies. The light along their legs fluctuates up and down in a gentle, repeating pattern, almost akin to glowing embers.

You sit and watch the Sea Treaders continue along for a few more minutes, unfazed when one of the largest individuals passes directly over your Seamoth. Eventually, the glowing behemoths amble out of sight.

Ninety-one percent power left. Your PDA says you’re getting a little thirsty, and since you didn’t have the foresight to bring any water with you, you decide it’s as good a time as any to head back. You angle yourself up, using the light from the moonpool to guide you, and head back home.

“Mark has boarded the habitat.”

You glance into the adjacent moonpool and are surprised to see Skye’s docked Seamoth. She must have returned while you were out.

“Skye?” you call, ignoring the automatic announcement. “I’m back.”

You lift up your PDA to use the comms but then think better of it. She may be sleeping.

You wander through the base, putting away the borrowed equipment and grabbing a bottle of water. As you drink, you run across Skye. She’s finishing a plate of food while scrolling through data entries on her PDA – multitasking as always.

“Hey,” you say lamely. “I’m back.”

“I see that,” she replies.

“I took the Seamoth out,” you explain. “Though, you probably noticed it was missing. Uhh. I didn’t go far. Saw some Sea Treaders. Did you know they glowed? Glew? They glow.”

“I did know,” she says with a sagely nod. “I saw you out there but decided not to disturb you. I’m glad you’re comfortable enough to go out on your own. That’s a big step.”

“I didn’t see you out there,” you say, deflecting her statement.

“I had my light off too.”

The silence is companionable, but it still itches at your conscience. You sit, sipping your water.

“Hungry?” she asks.

“No, I’m good.”

Another silent pause.

“How goes the hunt?” you ask, causing her to look up. “Did you find the rest of what you need?”

“Not yet,” she says, pushing the last bites of her food around. “I’m getting hung up on magnetite and lithium. I want to leave you with a good set of Seamoth upgrades, but I’ve already collected all the nearby mineral deposits, and I’ll have to end up going back to the other island to find magnetite. Ironically, I know there’s enough of both resources on my Cyclops, but it’s deep in the Lost River and that’s a journey I’d rather make as few times as possible.”

“Can you deconstruct something in the base?” you suggest.

“I could, but it wouldn’t be enough,” she says, then puts her plate down to face you. “Hey, don’t worry about it. It’s just taking me a little longer than I anticipated. If you’re going to be here by yourself, I want to leave you with as many tools at your disposal as I can give you. I’ll just make an extra long trip tomorrow. We’ve got time.”

The next day, you climb into the alien containment tank. It is much easier to keep yourself upright without all the bulky equipment weighing you down, although you bring a small oxygen tank in case something goes wrong.

You hadn’t heard the PDA telling you to check your oxygen levels since your first couple days on the planet. Now, instead of frantically paddling to the surface, you calmly sink to the bottom to take a few breaths from the air tank. You have to step out every couple minutes to refill the tank’s supply, and the constant in-and-out is handy practice for passing through the threshold force fields.

When you have a better grasp on the limits of your air supply and the various ways you can move in the water, you allow yourself to take in your surroundings. One of the first things to catch your attention are the fish. Despite their odd shapes and tiny fins, they prove much more maneuverable than you, and evade your attempts at catching them. Your oxygen runs low, so you get out and try again. And again. Just when you think you have one, it darts out of your reach. The few times you manage to touch one, you discover that it is slimy, like an Earth fish.

But you are determined. You enter the containment tank again. You cannot corner them, because the tank has no corners. You cannot wear them out, because they get a break whenever you have to get more air. You just have to be fast. And lucky.

You dart all around the tank, pushing off the glass sidewalls in pursuit of a single wall-eyed Peeper. You follow its twists and turns as much as you are able. After at least two trips up and down the length of the aquarium, you emerge victorious. The Peeper collides with a drifting Hoverfish, which in turn proceeds to freak out and swim directly into your outstretched hand. The captured Hoverfish wiggles its six suction-like appendages as the Peeper speeds away.

You do a short celebratory fist pump while examining your first hand-caught fish. Its speckled body is quite soft and squishy, and the expression on its little face seems so forlorn. With a warning from your PDA reminding you to get some air, you release the tiny alien back into the tank and make your way to the hatch.

You flop out onto the floor, chest heaving with exertion from your epic chase. You lie on your back, catching your breath, when a shadow dims the light from above.

“So, are we going to eat lunch today?”

“Screw you,” you tell Skye between breaths, “I caught one.”

“I saw that,” she replies. “Then you let it go. What’s the matter? Get cold feet?”

“I thought we didn’t eat those.”

“Mm, we don’t, normally. You ate one of those before though.”

“When?” you demand, sitting up.

“Back at the other base,” she says with a shrug. “I seem to recall you found it very tasty. You may not realize it, but I’ve probably fed you one of everything by now.”

“But, Peepers,” you begin.

“Peepers are the best option out there, hands down – wild-caught ones especially. But variety is important too. Reginalds are my personal favorite, but Boomerangs are a close second.”

Later that afternoon, Skye serves you a cooked Hoverfish. Seeing your miserable expression, she assures you it’s not the same one from the tank.

You float in place inside the big aquarium, focusing on your heartbeat. Eyes closed, you feel weightless. There are no sounds except the echo of water in your ears. When you first tried this, you found it difficult to remain still. Of course, it didn’t help that the little schools of fish came to nibble on your suit and tickle your chin. After switching to an empty tank, you found it easier to relax. Now, when you open your eyes and find that you’ve rotated upside-down, you are not alarmed. Every now and again, you feel the brush of a Creepvine leaf across your arm.

One of the leaves settles against your chest. You brush it away, but it returns. You have plenty of air remaining, so you brush it away again without opening your eyes. There is peace, and slow-moving water. Then the leaf returns.

You brush it away a third time, but in doing so, your hand touches something firm and jagged. Something definitely not leaf-like. You open your eyes.

Looking around, you cannot find anything out of the ordinary. The Creepvine sways gently in the simulated current, glowing seed clusters bobbing a little ways above you. Behind you – nothing. Below you – the sandy bottom of the tank. You inspect your hand.

When you turn around again, you are met with a long, narrow snout with teeth protruding from the sides. The green and blue body flicks its tail and comes closer.

You jolt. Peace and calm are gone as you make a mad dash for the door. Startled by your sudden motion, the small Stalker darts down to the bottom of the tank, hiding itself among the coral plates.

You slam the hatch closed and brace yourself against it, heaving and coughing with the memory of your very own Stalker attack. Your hands are shaking.

After a few minutes, you round the tank, trying to see the creature inside. It looks like an empty tank. You climb down the ladder to see the bottom of the tank. Still nothing. You begin to doubt you really saw anything. You thought it was an empty tank; you checked before you climbed in.

But it looked so real.

You have a couple extra pieces of titanium in your PDA inventory, so you pull out your habitat builder tool, construct a bench, and sit down to wait. Hugging your arms tight around your torso, you remember to breathe.

At long last, you spot movement. A tiny creature, not much bigger than your arm, pokes its head out from between the plants growing on the bottom. You stand up and it ducks back into hiding. It’s only a fraction of the size of the one that attacked you, but there was no mistaking that toothy jaw.

Skye once explained to you that the creatures in the alien containment tanks would self-limit their growth, and therefore not reach the size of their wild counterparts, similar to a goldfish in a bowl. You may not remember what a “goldfish” is, but you clearly remember Skye also said that nothing would hurt you in the tanks.

“Skye has boarded the habitat.”

Adrenaline still high, you switch on the comms and yell into the PDA.

“What are you doing with a Stalker in the alien containment tank and why didn’t you tell me you had a Stalker in one of the tanks? Don’t you know how dangerous they are?”

It’s silent for a few moments. Then, “Did you kill it?”

“No I didn’t kill it! I got out of there as fast as I could. _You_ should kill it, since you claim to be good at that kind of stuff.”

“Well I’m glad. Those eggs are hard to find.”

You are aghast.

“Honestly, I thought you knew there was a Stalker in that tank. He’s just a little guy, and yeah he hides most of the time, but you should’ve been able to see him.”

“Well I know now,” you argue, exasperated.

“Yep, so maybe uhh, don’t go in there again, huh Stalker Bait?”

“You think?”

“I promise you, he’s quite tame. Maybe you should watch next time I feed him. I know you’ve got trauma from your last encounter with Stalkers, but it sorta makes me wish I took you back there and made you feed the big ones.”

“No, you will not.”

“They’re really no big deal so long as you know how to approach them. Oh well, maybe later.”


	7. Get a Dose of Perspective

After a long trip, Skye manages to find the last of the magnetite and lithium.

“Now I just need to stock up on food and water, and I’ll be all set to go.”

This time, her statement stirs something different in your brain. Not merely the notion that Skye is leaving, or that she is embarking on a dangerous journey past giant monsters, but that she will soon be gone, and you will once again be alone.

You want her to be okay; you want her to reach the end and set in motion the long process to heal the planet. While she’s down there, battling creatures you’ve only seen on your PDA and some you can only imagine, you’ll be safe in this comfortable underwater base with all the amenities you could want.

The thought of being alone still grips your stomach like a vice.

“Skye has boarded the habitat.”

You look up from reading your personal PDA entries. She wasn’t gone for that long. Then again, she only went out to get some wild-caught fish to preserve.

“Mark?” she says over your PDA.

You toggle to the communication menu.

“I’m here,” you reply.

“Come down to the moonpool. I could really use a hand.”

Concerned by her tone, you get up and quickly shuffle to the moonpool. The echo of your feet and the swish of the dive suit’s fabric are the only sounds as you round the bend into the chamber.

Skye is standing beside her Seamoth; she gives you a half smile as you approach. She has blood on her hand.

“What happened?” you ask.

“If you don’t mind, I could use some help,” she says, pointing her thumb over her shoulder. She turns around and you reel back. Her white stillsuit is stained red with blood. A cluster of spines sticks out of her back and shoulder.

“Holy shit! What do I do?” you ask, reluctant to touch anything.

“Just pull them out, but wear a glove,” she says. “I can’t reach them very good.”

You pull on your heavy gloves and get closer. The sharp spines look like shards of coral.

“What happened?” you repeat.

“Tiger Plants,” she says. “Didn’t even notice they were there.”

“Shit, shit, fuck,” you repeat.

“Calm down,” she says like she’s not dripping blood onto the floor. “Just grab one spike at a time and pull straight out. Make sure not to snap them off.”

You brace one hand on an uninjured part of her back and wrap the other around one of the spines.

“Ready?” you ask. You hope she doesn’t notice how bad your voice is shaking.

“I’ve been ready. Pull.”

You pull.

The spine comes out with a small amount of resistance, and Skye hisses and tenses.

You step back. “Sorry! Shit, sorry!”

“Don’t apologize.” She braces her good arm against the wall of the moonpool. “It’s going to hurt. It’s going to hurt until they’re all out.” She pauses to breathe. “Just keep going. One at a time.”

It takes eight agonizing minutes to pull all of the spines out.

“So much for the stillsuit,” she jokes.

Her back is now completely red.

“Shit, you’re bleeding a lot.”

“Do you remember where the medkits are?” she asks.

“Yeah.” Why didn’t you think of that?

“Go get them,” she says, accessing her PDA inventory. “Bring some more water too. I want to rinse these out really good.”

You dash over to the locker rooms, frantically tripping over yourself to find the right one and then transfer its contents over to your tablet. With half a dozen first-aid kits registered, you race back.

Skye is in the room before the moonpool, sitting on a bench that was not there before. She wrestles with the sleeves of her shredded dive suit until you come over to help. You peel the top part of the suit down, mindful of the bleeding holes, and then grab the medkits.

First, she has you flush out the wounds with fresh water. You dab at the punctures in between bottles.

“Make sure there aren’t any pieces left in there.”

You continue flooding the wounds until the bleeding nearly stops. With her approval, you apply an antibacterial salve and then spray with the adhesive bandages. The result is tacky, yet firm.

As you’re wrapping bandages around her shoulder, your eyes begin to wander. Down her arms, over her other shoulder, and all down her back, you see scars. More scars than you can count, all different shapes and sizes and colors. Some look like teeth marks. Others appear similar to her current injuries, and may have come from Tiger Plants. Still others, you cannot begin to guess at their cause. There is not a clear patch of skin on the entirety of her exposed torso.

“What’s wrong?” she asks.

“Huh?” you say dumbly.

“You stopped winding the bandage. Do you need more?”

“No, it’s just,” you say, trying to find the words to express your thoughts without sounding like a complete asshole. Perhaps she was abused as a child. “I didn’t know you had so many scars.”

“It comes with the territory,” she replies, then sighs. “You think I figured all this out in an afternoon?”

“What do you mean?”

“I got all these here. This was my welcome to Subnautica.”

You are silent, unable to utter even a swear of disbelief.

“Surviving on this planet is tough,” she says as you continue to dress her newest wounds. “Sure, I’m better at it now, but I had to learn a lot of things the hard way. Go slow through small caves, beware of big open spaces, don’t go in Reaper territory, always have food and water with you, don’t stare at the Mesmers, always check behind you.”

You think back on your own scars, faint and fading every day. It was bad at the time, but then you were offered medical supplies, someone to treat you, somewhere safe to rest. Skye certainly didn’t have that her first week.

She stands up and pushes the torn suit down the rest of the way, revealing even more scars running down her legs. Left in only her skivvies, goosebumps rise across her marred flesh.

“This was a Sand Shark,” she says, pointing to a crescent-shaped line of indentations near the top of her left thigh. “And this was his buddy who decided to grab me at the same time.” She points to a similar cluster on her right arm, encircling her elbow. “This was a Boneshark. I got this one from a sharp piece of metal in the Aurora. This was a Reaper Leviathan. And this. And this. This, I think was a Crashfish. Or, maybe it was a Bleeder? I don’t know, it might’ve been both. This was a different Reaper – I was trying to get away from a Crabsnake. This is all chemical burns from the brine in the Lost River. I don’t think I have any scars from a Ghost Leviathan yet. The rest is just Stalkers and Biters and squeezing into caves that were too small for me and Tiger Plants.”

“Skye, I’m,” you try to say, but the words won’t come.

“I’m alive, and that’s all that matters,” she says resolutely. “I’ve still got all my fingers and toes, and I’m a lot smarter about how I do things, but I’m obviously not perfect. That’s why I tell you everything I can remember. I don’t want you to have to learn the same way I did.”

She stands up and starts to slowly walk forward, scratching her arm.

“You’re not going back out there, are you?” you ask.

“Nah, I’m going to go take a nap,” she says, waving off your concern. “I’ve had enough for today.”

You sit on your bed, trying to read more than the same paragraph over and over. The Ghost Leviathan page displays on your PDA, shimmering like it’s a real creature that could jump off the screen.

You cannot shake the thought of all those scars. Skye’s words leave haunting echoes wherever you go, and what’s even worse are all the things she left unsaid. She was torn up. She was alone. She hardened herself only for it to happen all over again. She’s not angry, and she’s not afraid. She can’t afford to be afraid – she _has_ to go back out there. Not only for herself, but for you too, now. She’s not angry that you won’t go with her. She wants to keep you safe, even if it means she has to be alone again.

How? How does she manage it?

Take this entry on the Ghost Leviathan for instance. How did she log that entry in the first place? She had to get close enough to scan one – alive or dead – but what was the thought process that went into that decision? What was the plan once she got close enough?

Skye told you that she went slow and careful with regards to exploration and resource gathering. She claims it’s the only reason she’s lived as long as she has. If her countless injuries are the result of “slow and careful,” you can only imagine what would have happened if she were any _less_ careful, if she _didn’t_ remember various details about the game. If she were anything like _you_.

You switch off the PDA and try to lie down to rest. Despite her recent injuries, Skye went out again today to keep gathering her all-important wild-caught Peepers. You don’t see the point – after she catches them, she cures them with salt and they come out of the fabricator stiffer than a brick. There’s an entire tank of Peepers she could doom to this fate, but apparently she’s a gourmet when it comes to fish-flavored salt.

Her wounds delayed her plans to depart, but only by a day. At least she’s back now, getting some much needed sleep. It’s one of the few times your sleep schedules have aligned since you met her. It seems like she’s always running around, always doing something, and juggling her PDA inventory on top of whatever that something is. But when she sleeps, she is out. As soon as her head hits the pillow – unconscious. It’s obvious she doesn’t sleep enough.

Not twenty minutes later, the sound of bulkhead doors opening and shutting rouses you from your doze. Skye runs through your room – hers is right next door – and out through the opposite hallway.

“What’s going on?” you call after her, though you yawn midway.

No response. That’s when you realize that the lights aren’t working.

You fumble around for your PDA and, upon finding it, select a flashlight. It materializes and bounces on the bed in front of you.

“Skye?” you call, following the sound of banging.

The habitat has a haunting emptiness to it, even with your flashlight illuminating the way. The banging stops, but you’ve zeroed in on its origin, and you soon reach a bulkhead door that is half propped open. When you try pushing it farther so you can fit through, it offers a surprising amount of resistance, and you brace your shoulder against its surface to force it open. This is the main bioreactor room, though one of three spread throughout the base, and you find Skye frantically tapping on her PDA next to the large machine.

The reactor whirs to life and glows with energy production. Around the room, the habitat lights flicker before returning to their normal brightness.

“Power restored. All primary systems online.”

You look over to Skye, who slides down to sit against the rumbling reactor. She looks like she’s shaking.

“Were we out of power?” you ask.

She shakes her head, breathing deeply with her eyes shut.

“Then what was all that about?”

After a few moments, you kneel by her side. Something is wrong.

“Skye?”

“Ten percent,” she forces out. “I didn’t even hear the warning for thirty.”

You slide up to sit next to her, though you leave her plenty of space. It was a close call, sure, but she’s reacting like it nearly blew up.

“My very first base,” she begins, “which was destroyed, by the way, was really small. I didn’t pay close enough attention to the power levels, and I thought two solar panels were enough.” She pauses to breathe some more and to adjust her feet. “There was an eclipse. I woke up, in the middle of the night. And. I. Could. N’t. Breathe.” Her whole body shakes violently before settling back down into mild shivers. “I didn’t hear the warnings. I didn’t have my Seamoth yet. I had to get out, and swim in the dark, up to the surface. I thought for sure that I was going to pass out, that I was going to drown.”

She takes in a big breath, and her tremors calm. “Ever since then, I’ve built bioreactors in all my bases, just in case. I probably have a couple dozen solar panels sitting on top of the alien containment chambers in this base, but I still have bioreactors. My base in the Lost River has super reliable nuclear reactors, but I regularly supplement with biofuel. Even my island base has a bioreactor, and it doesn’t even need to produce oxygen since half of it’s up on land. I just feel better having a bioreactor ready. We live and learn.”

You sit with Skye in the bioreactor room, completely upended by her panic. She seems unwilling to leave right away, so after a few moments, you stand up to replenish the fuel chamber. There is a tank of Garryfish a short ways away, specially intended for fuel, but there are also lockers with Sea Treader feces. You spare the fish and go for the poop, Skye watching your every move. She smiles when you sit back down.

“I configured the habitat to kill the lights when the power got to ten percent,” she explains, voice a little steadier. “It also shuts down a bunch of equipment to preserve power, like the battery chargers, and the scanner room, and the moonpool. That way it can continue to produce oxygen for a little bit longer.” She pauses, swallowing. “One thing I don’t like is how it shuts off power to the doors. It’s supposed to be a failsafe mechanism, like if the base were attacked and started to flood, it would seal off all the doors to prevent catastrophic failure. It’s just annoying, I guess.”

You continue to sit on the icy floor, one eye on the habitat’s power level. The count steadily climbs every few seconds. Skye rests her head against one of her arms and appears to go to sleep. Shortly thereafter, she opens her eyes and leans back against the bioreactor.

Your eyes are drawn to the scars on her hands.

“Skye?” you ask.

“Hmm?” she responds.

“This journey to find the Sea Emperor . . . Are you afraid?”

Her eyelids sink. “Of course I am,” she says at last. “I’m terrified. I haven’t seen it yet, but I know what’s waiting between the Lost River and the containment facility. I know that all it takes is one wrong move; one wrong move for it to put a hole in me the size of a Seamoth. I’m afraid, but that can’t matter. If I don’t try, I’m killing you, too.”

“I can’t let you do it,” you say, eyes watering. Who’s chopping Funyuns in here?

“I have to,” she says, slowly shaking her head.

“No, I mean, I can’t let you go alone.”

That gets her attention. She bolts up, eyes wide. “Whoa, wait a minute. I told you I’m totally fine with you staying here. It’ll be much safer.”

“And you still wanted me to come along, even when I was so useless, I didn’t know how to use the fabricator. I don’t know how I could possibly help you, but I know I _will_ be there. We’re in this together and I won’t let you do it alone.”

Skye bowls you over with a crushing hug. Though your oceanic apprehension lingers, you are sure you made the right choice.


	8. Get to Work

The celebration is short-lived. Skye spends the next hour pacing, going back and forth between the fabricator and the various upgrade consoles, eyes glued to her PDA all the while. By the sound of it, she’s keeping a running tally of the raw materials required to take you through the Lost River.

Double food rations, double water rations, extra medkits, a maximum depth module for your Seamoth, storage modules to replace the soon-to-be useless solar rechargers, not to mention an entire Prawn Suit and the whole gambit of upgrades and arm modifications for that as well. You could theoretically scrap the entire base and not have all the materials you would need – besides, Skye doesn’t want to scrap the base.

Her exasperation is palpable. She has additional resources stored in her final base, but at a minimum, you need the remainder of the Seamoth upgrades in order to reach it. Her greatest concern is reaching the Lost River and discovering that she still won’t have enough resources to build the equipment you need. Despite its growing scarcity, such raw materials are still easier and safer to gather on the “surface.” Once she makes the dive down to the deep, she doesn’t want to have to turn around again.

Add onto that the limited inventory space split between two PDAs and the two Seamoths, and her planning grows frantic and frustrating. She tries counting by resource type, then by importance. Eventually she clips her PDA to her belt and announces that she needs stuff and she won’t find any stuff by walking back and forth. What’s more, being out in the water helps her think, she claims, and she can better visualize her options when she can see what is in front of her.

You hope she’s right.

“I want to help,” you tell her.

She continues adjusting her radiation suit.

“You don’t have to,” she says.

You are fairly confident that if you changed your mind again, Skye would let you stay without any fuss.

“I want to,” you repeat.

“Well, you obviously can’t come with me,” she says, pulling on the fabric around her shin. “I’m heading back to the debris field, and I don’t trust the estimated dissipation period – radiation lingers.”

She pulls up her PDA and opens a new interface screen.

“C’mon you dumb thing, load.”

She puts the tablet down and goes back to straightening the suit.

“If you want, you can go out to the exterior growbeds and collect some things for me. I was planning on making a second reinforced dive suit once I reached the Lost River, but we might as well make one now. Read up on the exact quantities, but I’m pretty sure we’ll need blood oil and Creepvine cuttings. I’ll keep an eye out for extra diamonds.”

The exterior growbeds. You observe the collection of deep-sea planter boxes from a large window less than a stone’s throw away. At almost two hundred meters down, the light levels outside can be best described as dark and darker. Still, you easily identify the towering columns of Creepvine by their lantern-like seed clusters, and the spindlier Bloodvines by their ghostly glow. The majority of the other cultivated plants emanate their own bioluminescence, blending together to form a rainbow of color.

You need what’s out there to be in here, or more specifically, in your PDA. That’s where the trouble starts.

You could just open up the nearest hatch and free swim to the growbeds, but then you’d have to free swim back. If you piloted your Seamoth around from the other side of the base, you could use its front-facing lights to illuminate the area around the growbeds so you could see better. You could also climb back into the Seamoth to replenish your oxygen. Then again, the Seamoth’s lights could attract something to your location. You could get cuttings off the Creepvine inside the alien containment chamber, but you’d still have to go outside to get the blood oil for the benzene for the synthetic fibers. Oh, and there’s still a miniature Stalker in that particular containment tank.

You decide to go with the Seamoth.

It splashes down and stabilizes with a cheery, “All systems online.”

You steer the small craft around the base, all of your senses on high alert for anything that could be lurking just beyond the reach of your lights. You find nothing out of the ordinary; the deep murmurings of the Sea Treaders are the only sounds to penetrate your protective bubble.

Reaching up to grasp the hatch release, your hand freezes. You know you only have a few seconds to exit the Seamoth after you open the lid. It’ll be like stepping into one of the big aquariums. Except you have to go straight up. And it’s bigger. And darker.

You snap your hand back.

You can’t do it.

You told Skye you would.

To waste time, you putter around the growbeds, giving the area a more thorough search for potential threats. A couple poorly positioned Eyeyes give you a bit of a start, but they zoom away from your blinding beams.

You can do this. You’ve got your knife, you’ve got your PDA – you’re ready to go.

Taking up your position and ensuring your lights are aimed directly at the growbeds, you reach up for the hatch release. When your glove touches the cool metal latch, your other hand comes up and lightly taps your shoulder.

“Son of a . . .”

You drop your hand and pilot the Seamoth back to the moonpool to retrieve an oxygen tank.

The third time you maneuver the Seamoth in front of the growbeds, you do not allow yourself the same hesitation.

You push open the hatch and follow it up – pulled into the frigid waters that run along the Sea Treader’s path. Your body immediately screams to get back in the Seamoth, but Skye gave you a task, one proportionate to picking flowers from a garden.

You paddle to the gently swaying Creepvine and latch on. You are not regulating your oxygen consumption in the slightest and you do not give a fuck. The Seamoth casts stark shadows in the vines; the oscillating contrast is akin to flashes. After a few moments of irregular breathing and wide, slimy leaves fluttering around your head, you gain the fortitude of will to pull out your knife from where you tucked it into your belt.

You drop the knife.

“Thirty seconds.”

In the bright and colorful aquariums, this was an annoying reminder – one you could fool yourself into believing you might be able to ignore. At least for a little while longer. Out in the big ocean, it invokes a violent reaction.

You claw towards the light, panic rising in your throat when a few of the dark green tendrils wrap around and cling to your limbs. You slip free and swim as fast as you can.

The Seamoth proves to be more unmovable than you anticipated. Regardless, you grapple for the hatch and wrench it open with more adrenaline than is recommended. The automatic water guard creates a barrier between you and life-giving breathable air, and you propel yourself straight through.

“All systems online.”

Admittedly, climbing into the Seamoth is not exactly similar to climbing out of the alien containment tanks. For starters, you don’t have experience properly orientating yourself before swimming through the air-water barrier, so you are dumped into your seat upside down. Suddenly finding yourself upside down with your weight resting on your neck, you inadvertently activate one of the thrusters with your leg, which results in the Seamoth bumping into the base platform. Multiple times.

“Oh I hate the ocean. I hate the ocean. I hate it. I hate everything about it. I hate the ocean.”

Seamoth hull at eighty-seven percent, you seize the controls and ease away from the base. Back in front of the planters, you maneuver around the Creepvine column until you locate your knife, sticking out of the soil.

Scowl firmly in place, you give the situation one more, “I hate the ocean,” before launching into attempt two.

This time you swim for your knife, and upon grabbing it, begin hacking away at the dense plant. The dismembered leaves float around you as you continue your assault. Next comes storing the clippings in your PDA. Tucking your knife back into your belt, you take your PDA in one hand and chase after the Creepvine samples with the other. You practiced loading and unloading items with your PDA in the aquariums, and you blame your suddenly uncoordinated attempts on non-simulated ocean current and general panic. Many of your storage attempts are not successful on the first try.

While you collect the plant samples, you keep an eye on the oxygen meter on your HUD. Unable to locate any more chopped vegetation, and approaching the halfway limit of your air, you decide to head back.

This time you climb into the Seamoth feet first, but doing so correctly must be an acquired art, because you are horribly sideways and bang your shins.

“All systems online.”

“Don’t mock me.”

When you manage to unstick yourself, you check your PDA. You managed to collect five Creepvine samples.

“Hell yeah!”

Your goal was two, but you’re sure you can find uses for the others. Skye forces you to eat them on occasion, so there’s that.

You wince when you see the sizable chunk you lopped out of the vine’s body. It’ll survive. Hopefully.

Next is the blood oil, and you tell yourself three, only three, before exiting your Seamoth and swimming to another planter. The oil itself is found at the base of the plant, and is contained in clear, blister-like fluid sacks.

Using your hands, you gently pry the morbid juice packs away from the plant and hold them near the PDA’s corner for downloading.

“Thirty seconds.”

Hurrying your motions, you finish removing the final deposit of blood oil and store it safely in your PDA. Back to the Seamoth and another less-than-graceful landing, and your task is complete.

The next day, you construct your very own reinforced dive suit. You return Skye’s borrowed suit.

Ever the glutton for punishment, you ask, “What’s next?”

“Come with me to the mushroom forest.”

The forest itself is huge; at least it’s brightly lit. The tree-sized mushrooms provide excellent cover from anything that might try to chase you, Skye points out. They also provide difficult maneuvering challenges for a novice Seamoth captain. This time, Skye beckons you out of your Seamoth and supervises the repairs so you learn how to do it.

You find a wrecked portion of the Aurora, but Skye assures you it has been thoroughly scavenged. Her aim is raw materials, and the mushroom forest is one of the few biomes containing all the varieties of mineral deposits as well as one of the widest selections of organic resources.

She plants you smack dab in the middle of the forest, rattles off a “grocery list” of things to collect, and then speeds off to scavenge the more dangerous edges.

“I might be out of range,” she says, referring to the comms, “but I’ll try to check in every few minutes.”

Left to your own devices, you scout out the area first. There aren’t too many mineral deposits in plain sight, but you eventually find a small cluster and get out to collect them. You find some additional deposits halfway up the mushroom trees. Looking up, the sun shines brightly on the water’s surface.

Seamoth positioned a few meters below the waves, you get out and swim to the surface, taking the first breath of nonfiltered air you’ve had in days. The smaller, pale moon is behind the larger, red moon – only a thin portion of it is visible.

“Hey Stalker Bait?” your PDA crackles.

Detaching the tablet from your belt, you hold it up to activate your microphone.

“Yeah, what’s up?”

“I’m rounding . . . that borders the blood kelp islands. I’ve . . . a lot of silver, which is great for the . . . ‘ectrical components we need. How about you?”

“Copper. Mostly copper, and some salt. Did you want me to collect any coral while I’m here?”

There is a pause. “Say that again.”

“Do you want me to collect any coral?”

“Oh, _coral_. Yes, get Table Coral. And if . . . find any metal salvage, get that too.”

“Roger,” you say, “I’ll pick up any metal salvage I find.”

“Thanks. Stay alert.”

You head back into the dense fungal forest. When you have six copper pieces, you move them over to your Seamoth’s storage compartment.

As you sweep the grassy ocean floor and scale the Tree Mushrooms in search of minerals, the hair on the back of your neck tingles. You look over your shoulder but see only a school of Peepers and your Seamoth. You get back into your craft and continue searching somewhere else.

The next time you get out to harvest some good-sized coral pieces, the feeling returns. You spin around, but there is nothing nearby.

“Hey Skye,” you venture. “I think there’s something out here.”

The other end of the line is silent.

You break off some pieces of the coral and store them away in your PDA. Plenty of oxygen still in your tanks, you round the large tree, looking for any deposits that may be sticking out of its trunk. When you finish the revolution, you see a shadow dart behind a tree on the other side of the clearing. You get back in your Seamoth and go investigate.

The area is clear. You find nothing.

“Skye? Mark to Skye,” you say. Still no response.

You check your PDA – room for nine more things. Your hunger is getting a little low, but you brought some lantern fruit, and you can eat in the Seamoth a little later. Once you do, you’ll have an extra four spaces.

Exploring a new section of the mushroom forest, you find some trees with undisturbed mineral deposits. Using the branches as convenient platforms, you park your Seamoth and float from tree to tree, collecting whatever minerals you happen to come across. You take a quick air break inside your Seamoth, then go to gather the rest.

You hear a noise and turn around. You see your Seamoth, but you also see a Boneshark, nudging the glass on your Seamoth. After a few seconds, it turns, noticing you. Screeching, it charges.

“Skye,” you shout as you paddle back, the only thing you can think to say in your panic.

The Shark closes in, jaws open wide. Just before it reaches you, a shockwave crashes into its armored side, sending it flying through the water.

“Thirty seconds.”

Skye appears in front of you, holding a repulsion cannon. The Boneshark shakes itself off from where it grazed the trunk of a mushroom tree and flings itself back towards its target.

“Can’t I leave you alone for five minutes without you getting into trouble?” she quips.

“Skye!” you yell, pointing at the fast-approaching predator.

The experienced diver fires off another shockwave, and immediately follows it up with another. The Shark slams into a nearby Tree Mushroom, and the second blast drives it through the rock-hard coral.

Skye calmly pushes you out of the way to avoid the falling treetop. A ways below, the Boneshark shrieks and takes off in the other direction, trailing a cloud of coral debris as it flees.

“Oxygen.”

Skye detaches the breathing apparatus from her mask and plugs it into the back of your air tank.

“Thank you, Skye. You’re welcome, Stalker Bait,” she pantomimes. Reattaching her air line, she says, “C’mon, let’s get you back in your Seamoth.”

Once you are safe and sound inside your black and blue submersible, Skye perches herself on its nose, directing you to where she left her Seamoth.

“Hey, chop chop,” she says when you don’t follow her pointed finger right away. “I’m going to run out of air too, eventually. Let’s go.”

You find the familiar craft resting on a large tree branch a couple dozen meters away. She gets in, and she makes it look so easy. She makes everything look so easy. Then again, she’s had months to practice. Months of nothing but practice, necessitated by her own survival.

“How many spaces have you got left?”

You check. “Two.”

“Cool. You got any food on you? I’m starving. If not, I’ll just catch a Peeper and eat it raw.” She doesn’t like the thermoblade’s power-durability trade off, plus it doesn’t cook wild fish nearly as efficiently as it does in the game.

“I’ve got a lantern fruit,” you offer.

It’s a small gesture, but one that Skye lets you know is optional and appreciated. She fills the six empty spaces in your inventory and then leads the way through the mushroom forest, stopping to collect the few remaining mineral deposits on the way.

During the return trip, you come across a lone Reefback Leviathan. Glowing green infection litters its body, and it appears to be having trouble staying upright.

“We’ve gotta get that cure,” Skye murmurs.


	9. Get Out of Here

Despite your joint efforts, your supply pile continues to lack one vital component.

“I can’t believe we’re short on titanium,” Skye frets. “I was sure we’d find more in the mushroom forest.”

“Do we have space for more materials?”

“A lot of it will be refined into ingots,” she explains.

“What about around the crash site?” you ask, trying to be helpful.

“I’ve already been there,” she says, waving off your suggestion, “numerous times before you showed up, and for that very purpose. The debris field is picked clean, not to mention hazardous. Any salvage that may be left in there isn’t worth the trip.”

“You could deconstruct the base.”

Skye coughs and rubs her eyes. “I’m already planning on stripping out a few of the mechanical components to take with us. We’d have to dismantle half the base to get that much titanium, and I’d rather keep it intact in case we need a fallback location.”

“So what’s left? Besides splitting up and pinging random pieces of salvage with the scanner room, I’m out of ideas. Is there anywhere you haven’t gone?”

“I haven’t explored the dunes extensively. Not hard to guess why, but if that’s the only option we’re left with, it may be about time.”

The scanner room confirms there’s a good density of titanium salvage inside the neighboring biome. All you have to do is go get it.

After a short diversion to let a solar eclipse pass, you cross over into hostile territory.

“You still got the salvage locations on your HUD?” she asks.

“Yeah.”

“Good. I’m going to turn mine off. That way, I can keep watch while you gather.”

“How about I keep watch, and you gather?”

“What’s the matter, Stalker Bait? You don’t have to be scared – we won’t run into any Stalkers here. Just Reaper Leviathans. And Sharks. Lots of Sharks.”

You sigh. “I hate the ocean.”

“You know your comms channel is still open,” she says. “How’s your practice with that stasis rifle going by the way?”

“I caught a Bladderfish the other day.”

“Cool. How do you feel about catching a Reaper?”

“Alright, point taken. I’ll get the salvage.”

“I knew you’d see things my way eventually.”

“Whatever. Just be sure to watch my back when I’m out there.”

The dunes are an expansive landscape of rolling sand hills interspersed by the occasional rocky outcrop, patch of brown sea grass, or spaceship wreckage. Warmed by the sun above and a few thermal vents below, the water is a pleasant temperature – downright enjoyable. The sun is bright, you haven’t come across any Sand Sharks as of yet, and you’ve only heard one roar from a distant Reaper.

It is a great comfort to know Skye has your back. She spends most of the time standing atop her Seamoth like a lone sentry. Head on a swivel, nonlethal rifle in her hands, and potentially lethal knife on her belt, she watches with a singular attention you did not know she possessed. She hasn’t looked at her PDA in the last five whole minutes.

You guide your tiny posse to salvage deposits according to the HUD’s icons. When your inventory is full, you transfer its contents to Skye and then continue to the next unplundered section.

“This isn’t so terrible,” you say to lighten the mood. “We’re still alive, so that’s gotta count for something.”

“Don’t jinx us just yet.” She exits her Seamoth to keep a lookout. “Frankly, I would have expected to see more Sand Sharks. This is prime sandy territory after all.”

“‘More?’ You saw some?” you ask.

“A couple. A while ago.”

You reposition your Seamoth for easier access to another cluster. Skye stays where she is.

“Oh, this could be bad,” she says slowly.

“What? What could be bad?”

“Finish gathering that scrap metal,” she says, attention fixed on some point in the distance.

She doesn’t sound panicked, so you collect the rest of the nearby salvage and return to your Seamoth. Skye remains outside.

“All systems online.”

“Let’s start heading the other way,” she suggests, climbing into her Seamoth.

The roar of a Reaper Leviathan echoes in the distance.

“It’s still a long ways away,” she says, anticipating your thoughts. “Let’s just keep a leisurely pace and not draw attention to ourselves.”

You putter along the bottom, hyperalert despite Skye’s assurances. She falls back every few seconds to check behind you.

“Okay,” she says after another check, “there’s one behind us. Get to the rock formations, I’ll be right beside you.”

You push on the accelerator, heading for the rocky structures the two of you passed nearly an hour ago. The Reaper releases a deafening roar. Small outcroppings poke out of the sand, and you white knuckle the controls as the Seamoth reaches its top speed.

You spot a small cluster of thermal vents.

“There,” Skye declares. “We can lose it in the vents.”

You duck in between the steaming spires, seeing the Reaper Leviathan for the first time when you turn around. The gigantic serpent veers off, circling the vents while eyeing its prey within.

“I think we’re safe for now,” Skye says.

With another roar, the Reaper charges. It demolishes the thermal vents with its bulk, raining down rocky debris on your Seamoths.

“Keep going,” she shouts, speeding away from the thrashing leviathan.

You free yourself from the remainders of the vents and take off. A giant stone archway crests over a dune.

“We need to put something solid between ourselves and that Reaper.”

“I hate the ocean, I hate the ocean,” you chant.

Followed by the distant roars of the Reaper, you make it to the base of the arch and huddle together by one of its massive feet. You’re both breathing heavily, and Skye tentatively hovers out of the shaded hiding spot to glance back the way you came.

“You alright?” she asks.

“I hate the ocean.”

“How’s your Seamoth?”

You check its condition. “Seventy-one percent,” you relay. “And sixty percent battery.”

“Alright, I’ll get out and fix it when we know it’s safe.”

A great crash, then you are being battered against the Seamoth’s interior. A second Reaper Leviathan, appearing out of nowhere, bats your Seamoth around. A cloud of dust billows where it struck the base of the arch.

“Shit, hold on Mark!”

The Reaper doesn’t have a good grasp on your Seamoth, but that doesn’t help the panic flooding your system. Down is up and back and forth. You catch glimpses of its rows of teeth as your tiny submersible spins.

Suddenly, the tossing and tumbling stops. The giant predator veers off from where Skye bashed it with her Seamoth, but it is far from finished. Nauseous and bleeding from your temple, you grab your control sticks and dive back to the bottom. Fine cracks spread across the glass in front of you, and your perimeter defense indicator flashes from recent use.

“Emergency: hull breach detected!”

“Fuuuuuuuck.”

Skye’s Seamoth is in the Reaper Leviathan’s mouth. The moment it lets go, Skye is outside, in the water with the beast. A blast from the repulsion cannon is like a punch in the face to the roaring monster. As it circles, the original Reaper Leviathan appears over the hill, drawn by the commotion.

“There’s two?” you wail.

“Mark, get out of here,” she shouts over the PDA.

“Where?”

“Watch out!”

The Reaper Leviathan darts down towards your hiding space. You frantically slam on the controls, but everything goes black.

Water rushes around you, and you open your eyes a short ways from the arch. One Reaper chews on the fragmented remains of your Seamoth while the second gives chase to steal a bite.

“Mark! Mark, swim to the surface!”

You paddle up, but the squabbling leviathans intercept your course. They miss and you are left spinning in the open water. You still have a good amount of oxygen left, according to your HUD, but that won’t be much use to you if you’re dead.

“Mark, swim to my Seamoth, you’re not that far!”

The world is still spinning, and when you can finally see straight, you see the growing mouth of a Reaper Leviathan. Suddenly the creature stalls, pulled to a stop by the stasis cavitation ensnaring its middle. It angrily shrieks and twists around to try to attack Skye, but she stays out of its reach.

“Go, now!”

You locate her Seamoth and make a mad dash. The second Reaper closes in, but it is similarly entrapped by the stasis rifle. However, halting the second one releases the first, and Skye backpedals while trying to keep both monstrosities at bay.

“All systems online.”

Tendrils of smoke rise from the control console, and the interior light shoots off flickers of sparking electricity.

“Get to the base,” she shouts, both Reapers temporarily trapped in the same stasis bubble – one by the middle, one by the tail. Their furious attention is on her.

“What about you?” you ask, engaging her stabilization controls and feeling for damage in the thrusters.

“I’ll hold them off. Get out of here.”

“I’m not leaving you,” you argue.

“What if a third one shows up?” she says, reinitiating the stasis chamber. “I have to go up to the surface to get air in a few seconds. If you’re still here, they’ll go for you. Head for the base. If you can’t make it there safely, go to the island. You remember the way.”

“Skye-” you attempt.

One of the leviathans breaks free, roaring as it charges.

“Go!”

And for a moment, you see under her reinforced dive suit. You see the swaths of jagged scars covering her skin, the very scars that came from the mouth of a Reaper Leviathan. And you see the young woman, once again standing before the very creatures that caused her pain, willingly putting herself there, for you.

She’s afraid. When she turns to raise her stasis rifle, you know she’s afraid. Her hands are steady and her tone of voice is sure. But she told you. You know she’s afraid because she told you so. In front of two alien sea monsters, each the size of a train, Skye is in control of her fear.

You turn and flee, listening to the angry sounds of the Reaper Leviathans as Skye continues to engage the threat.

It isn’t far to the edge of the Sea Treader’s path, but you don’t consider yourself safe yet. Not even the sight of the base is enough to encourage you to turn around and check. Controls flickering, you race for the moonpool.

“C’mon, c’mon,” you chant, mashing the docking button as the arms slowly reach down.

“Mark has boarded the habitat.”

You throw yourself out of the Seamoth, hyperventilating, and rip off your gear.

You left her there, you think to yourself as you pace. There were two Reaper Leviathans. No Seamoth. You left her there.

When pacing doesn’t help, you take your repair tool to Skye’s battered Seamoth. You could go back – switch out the power cells and go back to look for her. But if she managed to escape, you’d only be going back to where the Reapers are.

Vibrating with nervous energy, you walk the base. Once again, Subnautica threw a situation at you, and you were too useless to handle it. Skye was counting on you, and the only thing you could manage was to run away.

You pace and panic and throw curses. You left her there to die. She’s dead because of you.

One minute turns into three. Then ten. Your PDA tells you to eat, but you ignore its warnings.

Fourteen minutes later, the robotic voice chimes, “Skye has boarded the habitat.”

You run.

You find her in the empty moonpool, seated against the wall. A trail of red shows where she dragged herself up the side.

“Holy fuck you’re alive.”

“Sorry to disappoint you,” she says weakly.

“Oh shit, this is bad,” you say, coming to kneel beside her.

Her left thigh is covered in deep gashes.

“Need you to patch me up again,” she says with a small smile.

“Skye I, I don’t know if I can.” You can see her _bone_.

“Sure you can,” she says. “You just do your best. You think I knew what I was doing when I patched you up?”

You gather a bunch of medkits and start to cut away her shredded suit.

“Geez, now I gotta make another one,” she complains.

“Don’t talk,” you say.

“Your forehead’s bleeding.”

“It’s nothing.”

She clamps down on your shoulder when you clean out the gashes. She must be in unbelievable pain. You pull a tooth out of her muscle and hand it to her.

“How did you escape?” you ask, winding another roll of bandages around her thigh.

“Escape? There’s no escaping two enraged Reapers. I had to put ‘em down.”

She might be delirious.

“You killed both of them?” you ask.

“Yep,” she replies. “Damn that hurts.”

“Do you think you can walk?”

“Not a chance.”

As you help her to her bed, she comments, “I’m sorry about your Seamoth. I’m not sure why they went for it first – mine was the one without the automated defense system. Shit, now we have to make you another one.”

“You’re not going anywhere for a while. You can barely walk.”

“What, this little scratch? This won’t keep me down for long.”

You’re not so sure.

“Hey, since you call me ‘Stalker Bait,’ does this mean you’re now ‘Reaper Bait?’” you ask.

Skye chuckles, but her laugh devolves into a coughing fit. After it passes, she eyes you wearily.

“Yeah.”

Skye spends the next full day in bed. The pain is intense, and you use up a lot of antibiotics keeping her fever down. Despite this, she regularly requests that you help her limp around the base so she can organize your travel inventories and craft the remaining materials.

You wedge a chair under the bulkhead wheel outside her door whenever you’re not in the room with her.

“You know my door swings open the other way, right?” she says over the PDA.

You swear under your breath, standing from your plate of laser-cooked Oculus to go see what trouble she managed to get into this time.

“Also, I fell and can’t get up.”

The following day, Skye is more tenacious about limping around the base. She bemoans the great loss of your Seamoth every twenty minutes and bleeds through her bandages.

“We’re going to have to get more,” she says, flipping through a line of storage lockers.

More, referring to more of everything – enough to construct a second Seamoth, hull reinforcement, storage, perimeter defense, and the full line of depth modules.

You can hardly believe she is still thinking about reaching the Sea Emperor with an injury like that.

“We’re not getting more,” you argue.

“We’ll have to,” she says. “There’s no way around it. We can’t both fit in one Seamoth.”

“Can’t we?”

As it turns out, you can. It’s a tight fit, but at least Skye stops going on and on about building you a second Seamoth.

No, her new fixation is worse.

“Great, that means we can leave right away.”

You set a plate of steaming Peepers in front of her and glare.

“Absolutely not, you . . . you _Limpy_. You can barely walk.”

You couldn’t protect her from the Reapers, but at least you can protect her from herself.

“I don’t need to walk. I’ll be piloting a Seamoth. And a Cyclops. And a Prawn Suit. Besides, I have three good limbs. I can still swim.”

“I’m going to hide the Seamoth,” you threaten.

“Don’t do that, that’s the only Seamoth we’ve got. It’s our ticket to the Lost River.”

“Eat your alien fish. We’re not going until you can get around on your own.”

“You can’t keep me inside forever, _Mom_. I will escape.”


	10. Get What You Need

You awake in a fully lit room. No base-wide emergencies, no roaring leviathans, no annoying Cave Crawlers tapping on the roof. A Stalker’s tooth sits on your bedside table, more token than trophy, but it is as silent as a fossil. Yet something woke you, and you sit up in bed to try and locate the cause.

As if on cue, Skye coughs again.

You get out of bed and go over to her room. She’s developed a recurring cough these last few days that only seems to have worsened after the Reaper attack.

Seated on the edge of the bed, you pass her a bottle of water. She sips it carefully, but this latest fit plagues her well after she puts the water down.

“Skye, your hands.”

Green spots rise out of her skin, the result of the bacterium’s progression.

“It comes and goes,” she says, slipping them under the covers. “Luckily, it’s only appeared on my extremities so far.”

“Do they hurt?”

“The bumps? Nah. They’re rather unnoticeable, just unsightly.” She pauses, then grins. “Don’t worry. I hear it’s only highly contagious, and completely lethal if left untreated.”

“But the Sea Emperor will cure it, right?”

She shrugs. “That’s what happens in the game. It’s been right about everything else so far.”

You rub your eyes. “You’re injured. I don’t like the thought of you being down there and not able to, you know, get around like you normally do.”

“I can take care of myself,” she insists.

“How soon do you think you’ll be strong enough to go?” you say with a sigh.

Later that night, you make plans to sneak out of the base. When you remember the habitat will simply tattle on you as soon as you leave, you abandon the plans and just go.

The sun is setting, and you steer the Seamoth to the dunes while there is still enough light to see by. After a few short minutes of searching, you find what you came to see.

The carcasses of two Reaper Leviathans lie on the ocean floor, already covered by scavengers. The army of Sand Sharks pays you no mind as you hover a short distance away.

You can make it. If Skye says you can make it, you will.

And so, preparations to get underway begin in earnest. You make a new reinforced suit for Skye, as well as the Prawn Suit upgrades that you have the resources for. She throws out material names and quantities at a speed that makes your head spin. Every space in your inventory is spoken for. You’ll even carry some loose items in the cab of the Seamoth, mostly food and water.

One of the downsides of having only one Seamoth is the cramped space. With Skye practically seated on your lap, and you pushed as far back as you can go, there is no room for oxygen tanks or other equipment besides your dive suits. If you have to get out for any reason, you’ll have to summon an air tank out of your PDA, put it on, and hook it up before any breathing can occur.

You’re pretty sure the Seamoth’s oxygen scrubbers can handle the increased demand of two occupants. You know Skye will want to get out and swim around a few times along the way.

She walks you through a theoretical tour of the Lost River, starting from the blood kelp trench just a few minutes away. She uses entries on your PDAs as visual aids. The various zones you’ll have to pass through oscillate from incredibly dangerous, to no danger at all, and back to incredibly dangerous.

“You’ll like it down there,” she says as you help her limp around. “It’s very peaceful, very picturesque.”

“I don’t like the ocean,” you remind her.

“But it’s not quite ocean,” she presses. “It’s something . . . _more_. Sure, you’re in water, but there’s walls and ceilings all around you. Then there’s lakes and rivers and waterfalls. You really forget about everything up here, and it’s not just the bacteria talking.”

You help Skye change her bandages. Part of you wants to do so as a way of returning the favor. A small, selfish part wants to ensure she stays strong and healthy enough so she can continue to do most of the work on the way to the promised cure. The rest aligns with what you said earlier – you’re a team, and you’ll finish this grand odyssey together.

She scans through pages of data on her PDA as you unwind the bandages from her thigh. Despite her ability to rattle off entire entries verbatim, she routinely feels the need to brush up on creature profiles and pirated alien knowledge.

When you get to the underlying flesh, you do your best to hide your automatic grimace. The deep gashes will no doubt leave deep scars, and it looks like some areas of the remaining skin were pulled uncomfortably tight when they healed. Skye doesn’t seem to notice, not her mangled leg nor your pained expression. She looks up only to remind you, again, to bring a flashlight.

To Skye, they are little more than new scars in a sea of others – a badge of accomplishment, even. Old marks peek through the flesh spared by the Reapers’ teeth. On the edges of her injury, where her healing is the most progressed, other wounds, long-healed, await the newest additions.

To you, they are a painful reminder of your failure. You left; you allowed her to handle the threat alone. You will not fail her again.

By the time you get around to applying a fresh roll of bandages, her uninjured foot manically taps the floor from where it hangs over the edge of the bed. She wants to be on the move, she wants to be doing something. If she stays still for too long, she’ll fall asleep. It’s somewhat comical, those few times you’ve glanced up to see why she didn’t respond to your last comment, only to find she fell asleep in her chair. All or nothing, that girl – all go, or all stop.

At least she lets you finish tucking in the edges. As soon as your hands leave her leg, she’s on her feet, off to craft something or count something that can’t wait another thirty seconds. She limps like a peglegged pirate whose treasure is about to be stolen.

That evening, you create a new entry on your PDA. You title it simply: “Skye.”

Skye told you she never made a record for herself. By the time she realized she needed one, she no longer had the materials to build it. It’s a sad story – the lonely girl with the borrowed name.

You consider waxing poetic, something that compares the vast ocean to the expanse of sky above, an unmovable object that met an unstoppable force and had no choice but to yield, heavily veiled in metaphor so you can reasonably claim it’s about something different if she ever swipes your PDA.

Ultimately, you don’t know what aspects of her personality she would choose to record for preservation. Does she even consider her brash confidence important? Based on the distant stare you’ve seen on her face a few times, she knows what’s important by its absence, and she is stuck with the rest.

After nearly an hour of staring at a blank page, you turn off the tablet. You hear her clomping steps from deep within the habitat.

Then, “Skye has disembarked the habitat.”

You hope she at least took the Seamoth, though there’s no telling what she could be out there doing. By her own assurances, you have everything you need to make the journey to the Lost River and beyond.

One of her latest oddball ideas pops into your head.

“If I shot myself in the ass with the repulsion cannon, I wonder if I’d have enough force to go flying out of the water.”

Skye lays everything out in two adjacent lockers. Everything is ready to go – you’re just waiting for the last batteries to finish charging. Her leg has gotten stronger, but she still doesn’t put her full weight on it.

She pokes her head into the multipurpose room where you sit, watching the little Stalker chase a Holefish.

“Hey, come up to the surface with me.”

You take the Seaglides and some half-charged batteries to conserve energy in the Seamoth’s power cells.

“Race you to the top,” she says, diving horizontally through the open hatch.

You manage to keep up, but Skye still beats you. When you break the surface, she’s waiting to rub it in.

“Cripple, one. Stalker Bait, zero.”

“Where are we going?” you ask. Traces of your lingering anxiety filter through your mind, though recently, they only seem to crop up when you’re at the surface, unable to see the horizon beyond the waves.

“I thought we’d go to the island,” she suggests. “Get on dry land, soak up some sun.”

So you go. The batteries won’t be finished for another couple hours.

This isn’t the first time Skye’s taken you to the island, but it _is_ the first time she’s not on the hunt for some super critical resource. It reminds you of the other island, oodles of leisure time and punting Cave Crawlers.

She reclines on the beach, still damp from the swim, and closes her eyes. You note how pale your skin has become and take a seat beside her.

“What did you want to come here for?” you ask.

“I came here before I made my first deep dive,” she says. “No, I take that back. It was the other island. Regardless, I knew I was about to go deeper than I ever had before. I wasn’t going to see the sun for a long time. So I took some time to just, enjoy life.

“It’s gotten to the point where dry land feels stranger than being in the water. I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to that. Anyway, I spent so long on the island that I got to see an eclipse. I’d seen them before, but this one was different. It was the first one I just sat and watched from start to end. Nothing was chasing me, I wasn’t running low on food or water, I wasn’t looking for the all-important next piece. I just sat, and watched. I wanted to do that again.

“The last time I prepared to go to the Lost River, I thought it would be a one-way trip. Not in the sense that I’d die or anything, I just figured I’d come out the other side via the warp portal. Then again, I guess dying was always an option.”

“Good grief you’re morbid,” you say.

“Well, hold on, I’m not finished. What I meant to say was that I didn’t imagine I’d be returning to the surface except to get what I needed to make the hatching enzymes. The last thing I expected to hear was your distress signal, and I thought it was a glitch.

“What I’m trying to say, is that you’re stubborn, and critical, and you put me in mortal danger – on more than one occasion. I might have been at the Sea Emperor’s door by now, but I would do it all again. I’m glad I came back up to the surface, and it doesn’t matter if you go with me, or if you don’t go, because now, I’m not alone on this planet.”

She closes her eyes again and takes a slow, deep breath of air. Sometimes you forget that she was alone before you came along – she handles it so well. She was alone longer than you’ve been on the planet. Even now you have trouble wrapping your mind around that one.

And still she offers you a way out, a rare life raft. With all the time you’ve spent by her side, you know she would make the final journey alone and bring the cure back to you, no doubt about it. But you’ve already made your choice, and you don’t want to think too much about the options.

“Are we having a moment?” you ask with a chuckle, trying to lighten the severity of her previous statements.

She sighs; her serene, carefree smile dissolves. “ _I_ was. Doesn’t really matter. I just had these things on my mind and well, I wanted to make sure they didn’t go unsaid.”

Feeling thoroughly scolded, you lean back until your shoulders touch the warm sand. The sun dips low towards the horizon, bringing an end to another brief day cycle and giving way to an equally brief night cycle.

“After we get back,” Skye says, “after we get the cure, we’ll be busy busy busy. There’ll be nothing standing in our way of building that rocket out of here. We’ll be so excited, we’ll probably forget to eat.”

“Just as long as we don’t forget to deactivate the big gun,” you say.

She snickers. “Yeah, let’s not forget that.”

You spend a few more minutes sitting on the beach, not saying anything, merely looking out over the water. The sun does feel particularly good against your skin.

“Well, we’ve probably sat around long enough,” Skye says with regret. She stands and offers you her hand. “Shall we?”


	11. Get Used to the Dark

Splashdown is a little different with two people inside the Seamoth. You’re more concerned with touching Skye’s hurt leg as little as possible instead of the half second of weightlessness when your stomach leaps into your throat.

She engages the automatic stabilizers and pilots the small craft out from under the moonpool’s footprint. From there, it’s just a few short minutes to the edge of the blood kelp forest, which you had previously only seen from the outside. Up close, the ghostly kelp resembles a multitude of tiny tentacles, coyly reaching out to touch you.

Brown and white Blighters, a haunting hybrid between an anglerfish and an oversized tadpole, flee from the trespassing Seamoth. Skye points out a solitary Ampeel, but it is far away, and not an immediate threat.

The trench itself comes into view and she instructs you to hold on as she points the Seamoth’s nose down. Natural rock bridges scan the gulf and she maneuvers around them with gentle adjustments to the controls. The roots from the Bloodvines above stretch through the stone into the caves below, identifiable by their white glow and gelatinous red blisters.

As you leave the blood kelp behind, the atmosphere subtly shifts. The fish down here resemble those found on the surface, but they appear almost skeletonized. It also gets dark. Very dark. You eye the depth meter projected on the glass.

Skye levels out the Seamoth, announcing, “We’re in the corridor.”

She slows the Seamoth to a crawl. Pointed rock formations with glowing tips protrude from the floor.

“Hold on. I always get these mixed up,” she says, approaching an opening in the rock face. After a few seconds, she turns around. “Not this one.”

The second one she tries is the correct passageway.

Then she turns out the lights.

“Why’d you do that?”

“Don’t need ‘em,” she says. “Look.”

She pushes a button and releases a sonar pulse. The Seamoth interprets the returning data and overlays a three-dimensional wire map of the surrounding area on the glass window. She navigates through the cave system by the pinpoints of light from the deep coral species and occasional sonar readouts.

Suddenly, she drops the Seamoth to the floor and kills the engine.

“What is it?” you ask.

“Shh, listen.”

You listen but hear nothing. A minute passes.

“Do you hear that?” Skye says.

You try, but besides the gentle breath of the Seamoth’s oxygen recirculation system, the only thing you hear is faint clicking. You originally assumed it was another one of the Seamoth’s life support systems.

The clicking stops. You strain to listen.

“Calorie intake recommended.”

The loud voice of your PDA startles you, and you jolt in place.

Skye rolls her eyes, unaffected by the sudden noise cutting through the silence. “Eat something, please. We need to stay alert.” She looks up at the hatch. “Give me your flashlight.”

You feel around where you wedged the tool and place it in her waiting hand.

“I’m going to go out and look around. Stay here.”

With that, she pops the hatch and is consumed by the darkness. She doesn’t even turn on the flashlight. Why’d she ask for one in the first place?

The low clicking resumes while she’s away.

When she returns, you’re licking the juices from a lantern fruit off your fingers. Your hands instinctively cover yourself before she makes contact with the seat.

“Calm down, I’m not gonna stomp on your nuts. Not intentionally anyhow.”

“What was out there?” you ask.

“Crabsquids,” she says. “If they catch us, we’re dead in the water.”

“Do they know we’re here?”

“They know something’s here, but not exactly where. That’s where the flashlight comes into play. They’re attracted to light, hence why we’re running dark.”

She waits, fingers drumming lightly on the control panel.

“I hope they notice it. We’ll probably have to pass pretty close, so I’m going to be going a little faster. You might want to strap yourself in.”

She leans forward so you can do up the harness that you don’t normally use.

“What about you?” you ask.

“I can brace against the front,” she says, interrupted halfway by an echoing screech and many answering clicks.

“That’s our cue,” she says, engaging the Seamoth’s engines and lifting it from the floor. She pilots the craft through the darkness, guided only by the bioluminescent organisms scattered about. At one point you catch a glimpse of a large group of Crabsquids, congregating around a single point of light. The clicking grows louder the closer you get, but fades away after you pass by. They seem thoroughly preoccupied with the abandoned flashlight.

“Shit,” Skye exclaims.

The Seamoth collides with a solitary Crabsquid. It grabs the submersible with its rigid legs and tips it back and forth. Its bulbous eyes inspect the dim glow emanating from the controls within.

“Hold on, I’m going to try to scare it.” Skye activates the sonar system and the exterior lights at the same time. Blinded by the strong beams, the creature screeches and drops the Seamoth, but it also releases a powerful shockwave.

Caught in the blast, the Seamoth goes dark. Your fingers tingle.

“Warning: emergency power only. Oxygen production offline.”

“Shit,” Skye repeats, jolting the controls back and forth.

“What do we do now?” you shout.

“I’m working on it,” she shouts back.

The Crabsquid advances, silhouetted against the glowing cave beyond.

Skye looks at the hatch release, then flips the switch that controls the stabilizers.

“What are you doing?”

“Evasive maneuvers,” she replies, also flipping the switch for the exterior lights. “Hold onto something.”

The Seamoth hums to life, control console glowing, and Skye jams both sticks to the left. The craft twists and flips, glowing points outside blurring across the glass. Your hands fly to her waist, holding her down as the submersible nearly inverts. She activates a sonar pulse while continuing to speed away.

Without the stabilizers, the controls appear much more sensitive – the slightest bump translates to a rapid turn or dive – but she operates it like a professional. She retains her laser focus throughout the twists and turns; even a glancing blow off a jutting rock isn’t enough to break her concentration.

At long last, the corridor opens up to a large cavern that glows a sickly green.

“Welcome to the bone fields.”

Gigantic skeletons litter the floor, and Skye guides you through some of their open mouths so you can marvel at their size.

You point at a glowing trail along the bottom and Skye brings you closer. The carcass of a Ghost Leviathan lies within the bones of a much larger creature. Only a small amount of bottom-dwelling scavengers congregate to feed.

“It deserved it,” Skye explains. “It wouldn’t stop attacking my Cyclops. Incidentally, those creature decoys don’t work for shit.”

Now you know where the Ghost Leviathan entry in your PDA came from.

At the edge of the bone fields, you see what looks like an abandoned base. It sits on a lip overlooking another massive chamber, this one tinted blue. At its center sits a giant tree, and within its branches, glowing blue balls.

“This is the Seamoth’s limit,” Skye says, approaching the base. “Give me a minute to restore power, then dock.”

She exits the Seamoth and disappears inside. A minute later, the familiar glow of a moonpool breaks through the darkness.

“A new crewmember has boarded the habitat.”

The base is small, but equipped with the essentials. Water purifiers, indoor growbeds, and a single alien containment tank filled with Peepers. Four power cell charging stations line a hallway, each waiting with fully charged cells.

“We’re not stopping long,” she says, examining the restarted nuclear reactor’s status. “Empty the tank, all but two, and preserve them over there.” She points to a fabricator. “I’ll start making trips to the Cyclops.”

“The captain has disembarked the habitat.”

“Welcome aboard captain.”

“The captain has disembarked the habitat.”

“Welcome aboard captain.”

With your heavily salted meals situated for the next few days, you meet up with Skye in the moonpool.

“Ready to go?”

“Sure.”

“The captain has disembarked the habitat.”

You jump in. At eight hundred fifty meters, the water is a little chilly, even through the reinforced suit. Looking around, you cannot see any Cyclops.

“Where is it?” you ask.

“Huh. I guess I could engage the lights.”

Skye fiddles with a heavy cord. A moment later, a small handful of floodlights come on, illuminating the giant shape floating above you. It is a jet black Cyclops.

“I thought it was an overhanging rock,” you exclaim, swimming for the hatch on its underside.

“That’s the point,” she responds, waiting for you to board.

“Welcome aboard captain, all systems online,” the Cyclops greets Skye as she climbs up.

She shuffles between lockers in the initial corridor, looking inside each one and moving materials back and forth. She grabs your PDA and adds it into the mix, muttering to herself.

“Awesome. I think we got everything we need.” When she is done, she offers it back to you. “You need to drink something.”

You snatch the tablet, scowling.

“C’mon, this way,” she says, leading you up to the bridge. Seeing her walk reminds you of her limp.

The bridge is beautiful – a self-contained mobile base. Inside, she has constructed a fabricator, a modification station, a radio, a medkit fabricator, a battery charger, a power cell charger, and a bed. Plants grow in small pots scattered throughout.

Hands lightly resting on the wheel, she turns to look at you. “Are you ready to go?”

You shrug, still taking in the various instrument clusters and holographic readouts.

“You wanna sound the horn?” she asks.

“No,” you snap.

She engages the engine.

“Engine powering up.”

“Alright, here we go,” she says, toggling through her exterior camera views.

“Ahead slow,” the Cyclops reports.

“What about the lights?” you ask, looking down over the base.

“They’ll go off on their own,” she replies. “Really, they’re just to help me park against the cave wall, and if all goes well, we won’t be coming back here anyway.”

The Cyclops runs smooth, and you gaze in amazement as it passes the massive tree. You only wish it had more windows.

“Won’t sounding the horn, I don’t know, attract predators?” you ask offhandedly.

“Nothing down here but the Ghostrays,” she says, stepping to the side to offer you the horn.

You press it, giddy at the deep, rumbling blast.

“Can I drive?” you ask.

She frowns briefly, then steps aside. “Just be careful with it.” Every now and again, she puts her hand on the wheel to correct your inexperienced turns.

“Can’t we go faster?” you ask.

“Let’s just play it safe,” she replies.

Despite its size, piloting the Cyclops is rather boring. Skye takes over when you reach a vertical drop. Briny waterfalls flow over the edge.

You travel through one large chamber after another. Skye says the final alien structure that houses the Sea Emperor is about fifteen hundred meters down, and that’s still a long ways away. As she drives, you take the opportunity to pop the hatch over the built-in vehicle bay and get your first look at a real Prawn Suit. She hasn’t painted it, and you look around inside after confirming doing so won’t dump you out the bottom. You recognize some of the controls from the Seamoth; the rest are completely new.

Climbing down the ladder, you reach the Prawn Suit from below. It has a drill arm equipped, as well as a grappling arm. The drill is surprisingly sharp. You notice some scratches and pull out your repair tool to fix them up. There is only one Prawn Suit, but Skye says she has a plan.

You doubt you can fit two people inside a single Prawn Suit.

“Engine powering down.”

You return to the bridge.

“Why’d we stop?” you ask.

“I’m just getting a little tired,” she says. “I think I’m going to have a lie down.”

You walk over to the bed with her, in case she wants to hold onto your shoulder.

She sits with a tired sigh. “We’re just on the edge of the inactive lava zone. It’s where I was mining kyanite when I got your distress signal. Speaking of which, I wanted to see if I still had enough kyanite left over to make the thermal reactor for the Cyclops.”

You put your hand out to stop her from getting back up.

“I’ll take care of it,” you assure her. “You rest.”

She lies down, eyelids sagging immediately. “We’re still in a safe area,” she says. “You can take the Prawn Suit out if you want to. I know I haven’t gone over the controls with you yet, but they’re not that hard. If you don’t go too far, you can reach me on the PDA.”

“I’m staying here, and I’ll be here when you wake up.”

You eat a preserved Peeper and pick some fruit, planning to cut it up for Skye when she wakes up. Going through the lockers, you find the mother lode of supplies. Returning to consult the Cyclops upgrade crafter, you retrieve the necessary materials to construct a thermal reactor upgrade module. You could install it, but you hang onto it instead.

You explore the engine room. You look through the external cameras and come face to fins with a Mesmer. Moving the camera seems to startle it, and you wish it would come close enough that you could strike it with the camera. You open the underside hatch and stick your foot out. The water is getting warmer.

You craft a bench with a few pieces of borrowed titanium and, taking a page from Skye’s book, sit down to go through some of your less-read PDA entries. Your itching skin prompts you to read up on the infection that put this whole planet in quarantine in the first place. It’s hard to imagine that an alien race capable of essentially downloading their consciences onto machines was unable to stop the spread of this killer virus. And all they had to do was work with the Sea Emperor instead of against her.

You worry about Skye. You know she’s in pain, although she tries to hide it. Especially when she thinks you aren’t looking, her expression falls and she grimaces.

But it’ll all be over soon. Kyanite is the key. Once you have enough, you’ll be able to reach the final two Precursor bases: the thermal plant, which provides all other connected structures and mechanisms with power, and the primary containment facility, which houses the Sea Emperor. Once the eggs hatch, you’ll be cured, and will be free to construct the escape rocket to take you off this cursed planet. Just as long as you don’t forget to disable the big gun.


	12. Get Resourceful

You eat together. Skye is relatively quiet for a change. When you’re finished, you produce the freshly crafted thermal reactor upgrade and offer it to Skye.

“This tiny little cylinder is going to provide enough energy to keep the power cells charged, as well as charge spare cells for the Prawn Suits.”

“How?” you ask.

“I dunno man. Video game logic.”

With the upgrade installed, she takes her position at the helm and restarts the engine.

“Engine powering up. Rig for silent running.”

“We’re entering the inactive lava zone,” she explains. “I don’t think we have to worry about running into a Sea Dragon this far out, but we will have to watch out for Lava Lizards.”

The walls get tighter as she maneuvers the massive submersible down. A red glow starts to emanate from the ground below, and the external temperature reading climbs.

“I’m going to leave the engine running,” she says. “I think it’s warm enough here to sustain the power level, but I’ll turn off the auxiliary lights. I hope we won’t attract too many Lava Larva.”

“What do they do, again?”

“They suck power. Hopefully we’re far enough away from the center of the zone that they won’t drain the Cyclops by the time we get back. We’ve got extra power cells in case that happens by the way. But we’ll definitely have to fend them away from the Prawn Suits.”

“Yeah, Prawn Suits. Incidentally, what’s your plan for that?”

“I’ll show you.”

You follow her down to the storage compartment where her fingers fly over the holographic buttons on her PDA.

“What can I do to help?” you ask.

She pauses. “Grab the materials to make a Prawn Suit. We’ll also need to upgrade its depth capability right away. Might as well also make a jump jet upgrade, hull reinforcement, uhh, a storage compartment, a drill arm, and a grapple arm. We don’t have enough kyanite left to make . . . anything . . . so we’ll upgrade your depth module later and switch out the storage compartment for a thermal reactor module once we have enough.”

Head spinning, you tap on the Prawn Suit icon on your PDA.

“Can you repeat all that again?”

Skye’s master plan is to construct a moonpool at a thousand meters down. She places a thermal plant a short ways away and the chamber glows alive. Reinforcement paneling is required to keep it from immediately collapsing on itself.

Inside, standing on the edge of the moonpool, she mutters, “I hope this works,” and tosses a bulky package into the water. The package expands into a mobile vehicle bay, and though the four remote drones bump against the moonpool’s ceiling, she whoops with success. While you craft a Prawn Suit, Skye places a vehicle upgrade console. The Prawn Suit drops through the bottom.

“One minute. I’m gonna go get that. Can you pick up the mobile vehicle bay?”

“Sure thing.”

She docks the Prawn Suit and climbs out. “It took some crush damage, but it should be good in here.”

She installs the upgrades as you finish crafting them. Around you, the moonpool groans ominously.

“Don’t worry. We got time.”

Once it is finished, you amble over to the customization controller.

“Shouldn’t we paint them?” you ask.

“Sure. I’ll go get mine.”

After painting – yours, black and red, hers, green and purple – Skye walks you through the controls while munching on a dried Peeper.

“What happens if I get attacked?” you ask.

She points to the left control stick. “Drill,” she responds. “Don’t worry, Stalker Bait. I’ll be right beside you.”

“Welcome aboard captain.”

“Ready?” she asks.

You take a few practice steps in the new mechanical suit and swing your drill arm. Feelings of limitless power indeed.

“Ready.”

She leads you down the corridor to where kyanite is found. You practice using the jump jet and the grappling arm. The first cluster of blue crystals is found a few minutes out.

“Go ahead and see how that feels.”

You position yourself and put the drill to the large deposit. Though it takes a while, you eventually reduce the structure to small shards, most of which are automatically deposited inside your Prawn Suit’s storage compartment.

“How do we get the rest?” you ask, eyeing the remaining pieces.

“The old fashioned way,” she replies, opening her hatch.

“Isn’t it too hot out there?”

“It’s a little warm, but the reinforced suit makes it bearable.”

She collects the loose shards and empties out your storage compartment, supposedly so you can continue filling it. She climbs back into her suit.

“Alright, onward. We need to get I-don’t-even-want-to-say-the-number-but-it’s-a-lot more, and we should keep steadily finding more the farther we go. Watch each other for attached Lava Larva, and we-”

Her PDA cuts off.

“Skye?” you ask.

No response. Her suit is still.

“Skye?” you try again.

You walk closer.

“Hey, you alright in there?”

“Sorry, coughing,” she says, angling her suit away. “One minute.”

You wait until she reactivates her comms.

“Phew. Okay, as I was saying, we continue this way.”

The next deposit of kyanite is located across a chasm with lava at the bottom. Using your grappling arm, you make it over to the other side and mine the crystals. Once they are all collected and safely stored away in your PDA, you shoot your grappling arm back to the other side. However, before you reach the ledge, you mistakenly push the wrong button, and your grapple detaches. Scraping against the wall, your thrusters deplete, and you fall towards the lava.

“Help, Skye,” you call.

Your suit touches down, but instead of alarm sirens, it stabilizes itself to stand on the partially cooled lava flow. Skye’s green head pokes out over the top of the hole.

“Don’t be such a baby. You’re fine. Center yourself and either jet or grapple your way out.”

It takes a few tries, but eventually, you crest over the edge and land safely.

“I’m free,” you exclaim.

“Congratulations. You’re still on the wrong side,” she deadpans.

You look around, swearing under your breath when you realize you landed approximately where the kyanite deposit was located.

“And you’ve got a Lava Larva stuck to your back.”

As you continue farther down into the inactive lava zone, the population of Lava Larva increases. You take turns stabbing them until they drop off your suits. Every now and again, you hear a roar from deep within.

“Sea Dragon,” Skye says, echoing your thoughts.

“Are you gonna scan it too?” you ask, poking fun at her frantic dash to scan an elusive Red Eyeye.

“Not unless it sits down for a nap,” she says.

“You think it likes Peepers?” you ask, snacking on one.

“I doubt it, though you’re welcome to try.”

You chase the dry fish with some water.

“How much kyanite do you have?” she asks.

You open your PDA and count. “Eight.”

“I’ve got seven. Let’s see. Four, three, six . . . I want at least ten for the rocket. I think we’ll be good if we can mine two or three more deposits.”

“Roger that,” you say, walking your suit forward.

As you search for the last few pieces of kyanite, the lava chambers you traverse begin to open up. You’re approaching the edge of your Prawn Suit’s depth capacity.

“I think that’s the lava castle,” Skye says, scouting ahead while you mine. “It’s where the thermal plant is.”

“It’s also where a Sea Dragon is,” you remind her.

“I know, that’s why I’m not getting close.”

Once you finish mining the current deposit, you join her by a protective rock face.

“We need to go there, right?” you ask. “We can just go now. Save us the trip.”

“No, I want to use this kyanite for the last of the upgrades. Then we can take a break and bring the Cyclops down here. Safe and slow, with a good fallback position. We’ve got time.”

“One of us’ll have to walk.”

“Huh? Oh, yeah. I guess you’re right. Besides, we left all the alien tablets on the Cyclops.”

Your walk back to the Cyclops is relatively uneventful, save for the handful of Lava Lizards that get territorial all of a sudden.

“When we get there,” you say, “let _me_ handle the crafting. You focus on taking the weight off your leg. With how long we’ve been in these Prawn Suits, I know it could use a rest.”

She sighs. “Okay.”

And she does. Skye sits on her bed, watching as you dart back and forth through the Cyclops, crafting and installing and crafting some more. PDA in your hands, you pause and look up. She smiles.

“I’m turning into you!”

She smiles wider.

You eat together, fresh-caught Magmarangs and marblemelons.

“I want you to be careful, Mark.” She pulls another piece of meat off the bony cooked fish. “From what I remember, the Sea Dragon is really big, really aggressive, and it spits fire. If anything goes wrong, I want you to focus on getting somewhere safe.”

“I’m not leaving you behind,” you say.

She shakes her head. “It’s not about that. It’s . . . Just promise me you’ll stay safe. I brought you down here. I don’t know what I’d do with myself if you got hurt.”

“The same goes for you.”

Skye pilots the Cyclops to the divide that looks out onto the lava castle. The passageway gets thin in some places, and you hail her over the PDA to help guide her through as you walk beside the Cyclops in your Prawn Suit.

“I don’t think I’ll be able to fit the Cyclops inside the castle,” Skye says. “Either way, we’ll scope it out with the Prawn Suits first. I’ll be right down.”

The bottom of the submarine opens and Skye’s green and purple Prawn Suit drops out. As she approaches, the thundering roar of a Sea Dragon drowns out what she was about to say.

“I think it’s a fair bet to assume there’s a Sea Dragon nearby,” she says. “We’ll go slow until we have to go fast. If you see anything, point it out.”

You begin the long walk to the collection of towering spires that comprise the lava castle. The water is murky – with what, you’re not sure – and it reduces visibility from inside the Prawn Suits.

“Up there,” you say. Skye looks, but there is nothing there. It may have been a trick of the light. It may have been a Sea Dragon, on the prowl for prawn and their gooey filling.

When you reach the massive structure, you find yourself in a matrix of crisscrossing caves. Lava flows through the bottoms like rivers, and you grapple to get from foothold to foothold.

Your PDAs chime in sync, “The volcanic rock which has formed in this area can be carbon-dated to between eight hundred and three thousand Earth years ago.”

“Hold up,” Skye says, bringing you to a halt.

“What is it?”

“Warper,” she says, gesturing to the purple floating creature. “I’m actually surprised we haven’t seen more of them.”

It looks small, but inside, it is part machine.

“How do we kill it?” you ask.

“You don’t. Not because you can’t, but because it’s a waste of time. If you ever get caught by a Warper, the biggest thing is to not panic. They’ll probably pull you out of your Prawn Suit and try to claw you from there. It’ll be disorientating, but as long as you keep moving, and keep moving away from them, you’ll eventually get away.”

You watch the Warper for a few more seconds until it suddenly vanishes in a vortex.

“Where did it go?” you ask.

“Don’t know. Probably not too far away, so let’s keep moving.”

Through a few more passageways, you reach the center of the lava castle.

“There it is. Right where it’s supposed to be.”

The alien thermal plant is a cube-shaped mass, connected to the surrounding rock by a series of enormous cables. It harnesses the geothermal energy of the planet and supplies power to all the other alien structures. Even the Warpers draw their power from the plant.

“Detecting alien materials and a massive energy signature. Reading originates within the natural structure at the center of this chamber,” says your PDA. An echoed response plays over Skye’s comms.

“How come my PDA is only telling me these things now?” you ask.

“What do you mean?”

“You said it introduces biomes and vehicles and other annoying stuff, but mine doesn’t do that.”

“I copied my data onto yours,” Skye explains. “It probably registers that information as already delivered.”

After finding the entrance, you breach the transparent force field and suddenly find yourself much heavier.

“There’s air in here,” Skye says, opening her hatch. “Might as well leave the Prawn Suits behind. They’re liable to get stuck on something.”

“Good idea,” you reply.

You explore the plant until you come to a locked door.

“I’ve got it,” you say, approaching the terminal to insert a purple tablet.

“Watch out,” Skye calls. In the blink of an eye, she whips out her repulsion cannon and aims it directly at you. You have no time to react before the pulse hits your chest, sending you flying back. Your suit squeaks against the smooth floor as you slide, eventually coming to a stop against a wall with a gentle bump.

The ceiling spins as you struggle to breathe. It feels like you were punched in the chest by a Reaper Leviathan.

Skye appears above you.

“You okay? Can you breathe?”

After a couple minutes, you nod. She pulls you to your feet, which begins another round of gasping and wheezing.

“I guess it’s a good thing these reinforced suits are so sturdy, otherwise you may’ve had a broken rib.”

Bent over, you glare at her.

“Don’t look at me like that, you didn’t see the thing dropping off the ceiling. If I didn’t act quick, it would’ve landed right on your head, and you were an easier target to shoot.”

Once you regain your breath, you return to the door and are surprised to see the remains of a small, Cave-Crawler-like robot.

“It must be a defensive drone of some sort,” Skye says. “There’s probably more.”

You pull out your scanner, because you know Skye will if you don’t. Then again, maybe she already has. You wouldn’t put it past her.

“Heh yeah. Get scanned bitch.”

Inside the room, you find a blue tablet. After scanning it, you pick it up.

Colors explode in your vision, and you hear an otherworldly voice.

“Come here . . . to me . . .”

“What is it?” Skye asks, approaching from behind you.

“I think,” you say, holding your head, “the Sea Emperor just spoke to me.”

“Oh. Yeah. She does that on occasion. I forgot she made contact here. Wait, did you remember to scan the tablet before picking it up?”

“Yes,” you groan.

“Good. There’s ion crystals out here. Let’s grab them and then continue on.”

You return to the Cyclops after thoroughly plundering the thermal plant of ion crystals and terminal data. On the way, you see neither tooth nor tentacle of the nearby Sea Dragon. Skye immediately plants herself on her bed to read the new information, transferring a copy to your PDA as well as copying the entries on the blue tablet and robot drones onto hers.

“Why do you obsessively read that thing?” you ask, cutting fruit.

“The smallest piece of information could be valuable – the difference between life and death. I don’t want to die here, especially when a stupid mistake can be avoided with a little light reading.”

You swallow your response.

“Did you remember to wash your knife?”

Guiltily, you look down. “No. It was in the water with me. Why, what’s the worst thing that can be on it?”

“Lava Larva.”

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that.”

“Lava Larva,” she says, louder.

“I swear, I’m turning into you,” you say, admiring the tasty spread of vegetables and Peepers that still look very much like Peepers.

As you eat, Skye steers the topic of conversation onto the next step – always the next step.

“I remember we’ll need the blue tablet to get into the primary containment facility, but I don’t remember if we’ll need more. So let’s make two.”

“That’ll take kyanite,” you say, recalling the recipe. “Are you okay with having only eight for the rocket? We can go and get more.”

She stills, thinking. “I’m okay with eight. If we run across any really convenient deposits, we can stop to collect them.

“So, we ran across one entrance to the active lava zone earlier, but I’m pretty sure there’s another one. One the Cyclops can fit through. Through the process of elimination, I’m pretty sure I know where it is. We’ll have to leave one of the Prawn Suits here. When we reach the containment facility, we’ll have to pack up again – pack up like we’re not coming back. Enough food and water for a few meals, essential tools, and as many building materials for the rocket as we can carry. Let’s bring the mobile vehicle bay too, though we might have to go back to the main base for more stuff.”

Rubbing her eyes, Skye sighs.

“You doing okay?” you ask.

“Yeah, I’m fine. I’ll be a lot better soon.” She pauses. “This is it. The last leg of the journey – the final push. As much as I’d like to hope, I don’t think we’ll get as lucky evading the second Sea Dragon as we did with the first.”

You nod in agreement. “Yeah.”

“Hopefully it’ll give us a little room when it has to pick on something its own size. And we’ve got those creature decoys. I think I’ve got two or three left. But they didn’t work on the Ghost Leviathan, so I’m not sure how a Sea Dragon will react.”

You put your hand on Skye’s shoulder, a gesture she used to give you confidence numerous times before.

“We can make it. I know we can,” you say.


	13. Get to the Finish Line

Skye pilots the Cyclops down a large crater. Farther below – the active lava zone.

The final chamber is huge. Lava boils on the floor, swirling the water above with its ambient heat. Cube-shaped alien structures sit anchored in the molten sea. A light concentration of particles coupled with the unstill water makes it impossible to see to the other side, where you know the containment facility lies.

There is definitely a Dragon here. You see its vague form appear and disappear in the distance. The open layout of the area guarantees it will eventually spot you.

“Rig for silent running.”

You nod to Skye, who pushes the thruster forward.

The Cyclops emerges into the chamber like a black, slow-moving missile.

“Stand by on the decoy launcher.”

You step back, a decoy ready in your hands.

As you get closer, you see the undulating tentacles of the Sea Dragon.

“Release it now,” she says.

You launch all three decoys and hold on as Skye turns the ship to get away from the squealing packages.

The Sea Dragon roars and charges, but instead of going for the decoys, it latches onto the Cyclops’s hull. The entire ship shakes, and a large webbed paw attaches over the front viewing glass.

“Warning: creature attack! External hull damage detected.”

“You think?” Skye yells, furiously pressing the controls.

The Cyclops groans and whirs, wrestling against the Sea Dragon’s strength.

“Ahead flank, emergency speed.”

The Dragon roars. You hear the sound of metal tearing.

“Warning: external hull damage detected.”

Skye slams her palm on an icon in the shape of a shield. Blue energy flows over the Cyclops, but the Dragon merely roars in rage and adjusts its grip as the energy flickers and fades.

“Come on,” she shouts, pressing the unresponsive button repeatedly.

“Warning: engine overheat.”

The tug-of-war continues. Unable to do anything else at the decoy launcher, and barely able to stay on your feet, you join Skye up at the controls.

“What do we do?” you yell over the commotion.

“Hold on,” she yells back, reversing the propeller and jamming it to full power.

The massive craft fishtails as she tries to break the creature’s grip.

“Caution: hull integrity low.”

After a particularly powerful shake, Skye slaps the blue button again. This time, the giant Dragon releases the ship as its shields activate, encapsulating it in an impenetrable bubble of blue energy.

“We’re free,” she exclaims, steering the sub back the way you came, even as the Dragon gives chase, bumping the shield with its nose.

“Warning: engine heat critical.”

“Skye-”

“I know!”

The Cyclops speeds towards the opening in the rock face, warning lights blaring.

“Warning: fire detected!”

“The fire suppression system will take care of it,” she says, pulling your attention back while pressing a button on the far left.

The Dragon continues its assault, fireballs bursting around the Cyclops.

“It’s not working,” you say, looking back to the engine compartment where smoke is pouring out the door.

“Shit, it must’ve gotten damaged somehow,” she says, trying the button again. “Can you put it out?”

“Yeah, yeah give me a minute,” you say, jogging back to the blazing engine. The smoke stings your eyes and makes it difficult to see.

“Caution: hull integrity low.”

You locate a moderately safe path through the flames and reach out for the conveniently located extinguisher, but the metal handle is hot to the touch and you yank your hand back with a yelp.

The engine is still going at full speed and the flames will only continue to grow. Setting your jaw, you take ahold of the extinguisher and start spraying. The fire weakens.

Suddenly, the Cyclops jolts with a loud thud. The momentum sends you flying into the nearest wall, and after a moment of pleading disbelief, you pick yourself up and continue putting out the flames.

“Fires extinguished, air scrubbers initiated,” the Cyclops’s voice says.

The air leading out of the engine room clears as you return to the bridge. Skye limps back towards you, talking at a hundred miles an hour.

“Sorry about the crash. We were coming in hot and I didn’t have enough space to execute a proper turn. At least the Dragon’s gone, but we’ve got some major damage to take care of. What’s wrong with your hand?”

“Oh I uhh, burned it.”

“Well here, let’s take care of it right away.”

“What about the sub?” you ask, watching her face cycle through a variety of conflicted emotions. “Go. I’ll repair the engine.”

Sitting on the bed, as Skye gently rubs healing gel on your hand, you ask, “What now?”

“The only thing left is the Prawn Suits,” she says, grabbing a roll of bandages. “They’re sturdy enough to make it, and that thing can’t chase both of us. I should’ve known bringing the Cyclops was a bad idea.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“Still.”

“Do we want to switch out our drills with weapon arms? Or double up grappling attachments? I don’t think drills will be any use against a Sea Dragon.”

She shakes her head. “We don’t have enough gold. Even then, I’m not sure if I would. Evasion is the best course of action.”

You get geared up. PDA filled with kyanite, and a few portions of food and water, you swim to your dormant Prawn Suit. After slicing off the Lava Larva that congregated while you were away, you enter the mech suit.

“Welcome aboard captain.”

Skye contacts you over the PDA. “We’ll start off together, then separate depending on what the Dragon does. The suits can take a beating, just focus on getting to the other side of that lava lake.”

“Alright, good luck.”

You start off across the roiling seabed. The Sea Dragon’s roars grow louder with each step you take.

“Are you sure you don’t wanna get out and scan it?”

“I kinda do.”

“Skye,” you warn.

“Kidding,” she replies. “But only a little bit.”

After a few more minutes, the Sea Dragon dives down, throwing fireballs in your direction. A couple strike your Prawn Suits, but the damage is not too severe.

“Keep going,” she encourages, picking up speed as the Dragon swings back around.

It charges again.

“It’s after you,” you shout.

Skye dodges with a last-minute grapple to a nearby rock while the Dragon gets a mouthful of magma.

“Almost there.”

You continue your frantic race to the Precursor structure, one eye on Skye. The glow of the force field door beckons you onward. You have a blue tablet in your inventory, as well as a purple and an orange one. Since you can climb in and out of your suit faster, it is your job to open the door.

Your PDA activates. “The alien facility in this region is larger than any other encountered on four-five-four-six-B. Approach with caution.”

“Annoying, right?” she says, panting lightly. “It has notoriously terrible timing.”

The Sea Dragon lunges through the haze and swipes at Skye’s lagging Prawn Suit. The blow sends her flying through the water, but the suit’s stabilizers quickly orientate her while the jet thrusters engage to regulate a slow descent. Before she reaches the bottom, the Dragon swoops in and catches the small suit in its mouth.

“Skye!”

“Let go, you overgrown squid.”

You hear the sounds of Skye’s drill over the PDA as well as her frantic gasps. It won’t be enough – the Dragon is too big. You look around, desperate. Pointing your grappling arm at the Dragon, you fire, but it is out of range, and your anchor comes back.

The Dragon roars and releases Skye, who floats to the bottom.

“Get that door open,” she shouts.

You make it to the exterior of the structure and climb out of your suit. Outside, the water is scalding hot, and you can only take a few seconds before climbing back inside. Luckily, it only takes a few seconds to place the blue tablet into the alien terminal. Behind you, the Dragon’s roars echo around the vast chamber.

Your vision blurs.

“I am what . . . you seek . . . want to . . . help you . . .”

The force field fades and you turn, urging Skye to hurry. Her suit is a little chewed up and bears her limp, but she marches it towards safety at full speed. Only once she is inside do you follow.

“Let’s get away from the door,” she says.

With a wall of solid alien technology between you and the bellowing Sea Dragon outside, you exit your Prawn Suit. Small robots, like the ones you found in the Precursor’s thermal plant, scurry up the walls farther into the facility.

“Skye, are you okay?” you ask, helping her climb down from her suit.

“Fine,” she says, panting. “Just a little winded, is all. What’d I say – the suits can take a beating.”

“We made it.”

“We did,” she says with a smile that fades quickly. “We can’t stop now.”

She takes a step and her leg collapses. You rush to help her up.

“I’m fine,” she says before you can admonish her.

“Take a break,” you say. “What’s that you keep telling me? We’ve got time. We made it here.”

She nods, her enthusiasm deflating.

“There should be warp gates,” she says. “And an ion crystal generator. Hopefully we won’t have to use them, but we should activate all the gates.”

“I’ll get them,” you assure her. “You just take a minute to rest.”

After repairing her Prawn Suit, you climb in yours and set off to explore the facility and activate the warp gates, squashing any drone you see on the way.

“This room appears to be a biological archive,” your PDA states, “storing more than forty indigenous egg specimens in different states of development.”

You scan as you go.

“Translating local alien broadcast . . . Warning: Vaccine development program terminated. Emperor egg hatching project terminated. Live specimens terminated. Evacuate immediately.”

By the time you finish activating all the gates, you find Skye in the central chamber, hobbling from alien relic to alien relic, scanning each object in the display cases and reading the entries on her PDA.

“You just can’t sit still, can you?” you ask.

She activates her comms. “Of course not. I wonder if an achievement bubble will pop up if I manage to scan everything.”

“You still don’t have the Sea Dragon,” you point out.

Skye turns and makes to march right back outside, but you block her with your grappling arm.

“Don’t even think about it.”

She looks up at you and smiles. From her PDA, she produces a white, conical object about the size of her hand. She scans it.

“New creature entry acquired,” her PDA chimes.

She holds the screen up for you to see.

“I don’t believe it.”

“Told you I’d get it,” she says.

“How’d you get a tooth?” you ask as she continues scanning the alien relics.

“Honestly, it was sheer luck. When it had me in its mouth, my drill arm was wedged inside. That’s why it let go so fast. I didn’t realize until afterwards that I had a tooth in my suit’s storage compartment.”

Scanning complete, she grabs ahold of your grappling arm and you lower her into her Prawn Suit.

“Thanks for the lift. You take care of all the gates?”

“Yep, they’re all active.”

“Great. That means there’s only one thing left to do. Let’s go.”

Your PDAs chime, “Unlike other alien facilities, scans indicate this location supports a diverse and healthy ecosystem. Explanation unclear at this time.”

She leads you to the aquarium, checking all the alcoves for inactive gates, and jumps in.

The Sea Emperor is bigger than you remember – even bigger than the Sea Dragon. It regards you with glowing eyes, shaking the platform you find yourselves on, before pushing off.

“Are you here . . . to play?” she asks. “Others came here once. They built these walls. They played . . . alone. They bored me. Now they’re gone. And instead . . . we have you. We are curious whether you swim with the current, or fight against it, as they did.”

“Tell me you heard that too,” you say.

“Oh, I heard it alright,” she says, voice giddy.

As you float to the bottom of the enclosure and take in the lush environment inside, your PDA narrates.

“The creatures’ symptoms are being alleviated by the clouds of stomach enzyme being emitted by the leviathan. Scans indicate the enzyme is too unstable to act as a permanent vaccine. Detecting unusually passive behavioral patterns in nearby predators. Reason unknown. Environment scans indicate the water here is rich with a rare, plankton-like lifeform which depends on the organic detritus produced by the ecosystem around it. The plant life in this area is growing outside its normal conditions. Other lifeforms fertilizing and pruning the vegetation may be offsetting this environmental deficit.”

Skye immediately gets out of her Prawn Suit, and though you call out to her, the Stalkers that approach merely nuzzle their long snouts against her dive mask and continue on. She approaches the eggs, scanner at the ready.

“My young want to hatch,” the Emperor says, coming to rest on the bottom. “To play outside this place. We have been here so long. The others built a passage to reach the world outside. I asked them for this freedom, but they could not hear me. If you help us, I will give you freely what the others tried in vain to take.”

The Emperor then takes up position at the sand-covered arch. “With the passage you have opened, my young can leave this place. But first they must feel the time is right and break free of their shells. This is what the others could not force from me. To you, I give the secret willingly.”

She blows off the sand, revealing a final warp gate, which you activate.

“The water is warm here,” Skye says, scanning every component of the hatching setup. “I already feel better from the trace amounts of the enzyme in the water.”

You approach the eggs and exit your Prawn Suit. Nearby Brain Coral provides a convenient source of air.

“I’ve got it,” she says excitedly. “I’ve got the recipe for the hatching enzyme. Let’s see.” She flips through her PDA entries. “Eye Stalk seed, fungal sample, Ghost Weed seed, Sea Crown seed, and Bulb Bush seed. Wait, Sea Crown? Sea Crown, Sea Crown . . . I don’t have an entry for Sea Crown.”

You consult your PDA – same thing.

“Shit, we’re one short. Shit!” she shakes the tablet. “If I don’t have it, that means it’s really rare, which means it’ll be difficult to find. Shitfuck!”

“Hold on,” you say. “Let’s look around here. Maybe you didn’t find it before because it only grows with the Emperor.”

“It’s worth a try, though I doubt it.”

You spend a few minutes searching the enclosure. The Sea Emperor watches you with great interest, or what you can only assume is great interest.

“Here, I found it,” you call out.

“Really?” Skye joins you and scans the blue and green plant. “You did. Shit, that was close.”

“Here, give me your knife.”

You cut through the plant and retrieve a seed, storing it safely inside your PDA.

“The rest of the ingredients should be in the island base,” Skye says, synching your PDA data entries. “We can reach it with the Prawn Suits, but it’ll be a little tricky.”

“I can go, if you want to stay here,” you offer, mindful of her more advanced infection.

“You . . . I would speak with you,” the Sea Emperor says, peering down at you.

“Me?” Skye asks.

You’re unsure the Emperor can even hear you through the masks and the water, but she responds, “Yes . . . you.”

Skye shrugs. “I don’t remember this part. Guess I’ll stay here. Be careful, okay?”

You’re on your own when you return to the island base. It seems so small now, compared to the main seabase, the Emperor Leviathan, and everything you’ve seen since. You find all the necessary ingredients to make the hatching enzyme and put them through the fabricator. The result is a glass vial with a silvery liquid inside. It is more precious than kyanite.

You run into a Warper on your way back to the portal, but with Skye’s advice in mind, you keep calm when it rips you out of your Prawn Suit. You climb back inside and grapple away, avoiding its second attempt to capture you.

When you return, you find Skye seated atop a Brain Coral, neck craned up towards the Emperor Leviathan. As you approach, you push away a curious Stalker.

“Did you get it?” she asks, noticing you.

“Right here.” You take the enzyme out of your PDA. “What’d the two of you talk about?”

She shrugs, a shaky shift of her shoulders. “Nothing much. Just stuff I already know.” She moves over to the incubating mechanism. “Let’s do this.”

You hand her the vial. “I’ll let you do the honors.”

She loads the enzyme into the machine. Soon, the five eggs start moving. A tiny Sea Emperor emerges from each egg, the baby no bigger than yourself. Skye scans one of the new hatchlings.

As they awkwardly take their first swimming strokes into the enclosure, they release balls of shimmering gold – the cure. It latches onto your hands before soaking in.

“We did it,” Skye says, flexing her newly cleared hands.

“We’re cured.”

The baby leviathans file out through the warp gate. Behind you, the mother slumps to the ground.

“My young are swimming for the shallows. I thank you. Their freedom is my end. What will it be like, I wonder, to go to sleep and never wake up? Perhaps next we meet, I will be an ocean current, carrying seeds to a new land . . . Or a creature so small it sees the gaps between the grains of sand. Farewell, friend.”

Admittedly, you forgot the bittersweet ending this game presented when you first played through it. The young will survive, but the mother will die. It feels more real this time, with the Sea Emperor towering over you and your skin no longer itching. You know it is a scripted event, but it still hurts.

You approach the warp gate, but Skye hesitates.

“Skye, let’s go,” you call out.

She swims up to the enormous creature and takes out her scanner. You could facepalm.

“New creature entry acquired.”

She reaches out and lays a hand on the Emperor Leviathan’s head.

“Farewell, friend,” she says. “Until we next meet.”


	14. Get on the Same Page

Breaking through to the surface is a triumphant return. The sun feels warm on your face and there is only one thing left to do – construct the rocket.

“And disable the gun,” Skye reminds you.

Now, the Warpers leave you alone. In the water, wobbling balls of golden cure float with the current, acting as little something-or-others to show the paths taken by the hatchling Emperor Leviathans. You know there’s a particular word that would perfectly describe their placement, and you’re aware that that word is now beyond your grasp, but you couldn’t care less – you’re cured!

You take your time making it up to the quarantine enforcement platform, prancing and humming and punting Cave Crawlers. When a three-legged Crawler charges at you, you take great joy in capturing it with the propulsion cannon and sending it flying into the water. You offer Skye the honor of disabling the big gun, but she shoves your hand into the machine. When it stabs you, she cackles like a maniac. The facility powers down, and _now_ all that is left is to construct the Neptune Escape Rocket.

The walk to the main seabase takes a lot longer in the Prawn Suits, but you don’t mind. You stroll right through hostile biomes – if the Sea Dragon couldn’t break a Prawn Suit, nothing on the surface even worries you.

Skye selects the area above the Sea Treader’s path as the construction site for the rocket. The water is deep enough, and more importantly, it is close to the base.

You feast on freshly cooked Peepers and lantern fruit, encouraging Skye to do the same. It is no surprise that she marches on with a one-track mind, placing the mobile vehicle bay and tallying up the crafting components for the rocket’s base.

At least she’s sleeping more. As construction gets underway and you erect the launch platform and the gantry, she makes up for lost time in bed. The supplies she brought up from the Lost River give you a good amount of starting materials, and you have more than enough kyanite – thank goodness.

Skye continues to limp on her bad leg, so you take over gathering whatever resources the next stage lacks. With the help of the scanner room, your trips are short, focused, and effective. It’s still disheartening to have the next piece of the rocket require _more_ of what you just gathered.

“Welcome to my world,” Skye says dryly. “That’s been my entire experience of building a Seamoth, _and_ a base, _and_ a Cyclops, _and_ the upgrades.”

Once, when you return from gathering gold and silver, you find Skye dismantling some of the unnecessary parts of the base – excess alien containment chambers, storage lockers, one of the bioreactors. An entire wing vanishes while you have your back turned, and she presents you with half an inventory’s worth of titanium.

She still calls you “Stalker Bait.”

Later that day, as you stand next to the rocket’s construction terminal, mentally counting the materials you’ll need for the next step, Skye joins you.

“Thought you could use some fresh food,” she says.

She joins you to eat. Roasted Spadefish is on the menu, and you tuck in while she takes out her knife and a marblemelon and begins to cut.

“Did you wash your knife?” you ask sarcastically.

“Of course not. That’s where the flavor comes from.”

You polish off two Spadefish as well as a handful of fruit. She offers you some water.

Skye limps around the platform, inspecting the gantry and consulting the terminal for the next step in construction.

“I can’t believe we’re really doing it,” she says. “This rocket was my dream. Now it’s finally taking shape.”

“What do you think it’ll be like?” you ask.

“Jarring,” she says. “Probably get a final vision from the Sea Emperor. After that, I’m not sure.”

“Do you think it’ll take us back to the real world?”

She sighs. “That, I don’t know. As much as I hate to admit it, this world _is_ real. It’s not the one we came from, and I don’t know if ours is out there somewhere, or if this one will cease to exist when the rocket takes off.” She runs her hands down the smooth metal of the control terminal. “This world _is_ real. I don’t know what comes after. One thing I do know – this is the next step.”

Skye bends over and coughs. Then she coughs again. And again.

You thought her coughing fits were over, and go to lightly put a hand on her back.

“It’s fine,” she insists, pivoting away from you. “I’m fine.”

“Are you okay?”

She continues to cough, then straightens with a strained gasp. “It’s nothing,” she says. “Just some residual effects, is all. I’m fine.” She clears her throat. “Are you going to be out here much longer?”

You give her an unsure glance. “Probably just another hour or so. Need to find some more nickel and rubies,” you say.

“Alright,” she says. “I’m going to head back to the base, keep working with things down there. Maybe see if I can’t find some mineral deposits around the Sea Treaders. This would be so much easier with a Seamoth.”

“Tell me about it,” you agree.

“I’d offer to build one, but I really don’t want to put off building this rocket for a second.”

“I know what you mean.”

“Alright, well, see ya.” With a wave, she dives off the platform and into the deep, blue water.

You return to the base, dead on your feet. The boosters are built, but you groan at the prospect of collecting enough gold and silver for the ion power cells necessary to make the fuel reserves.

Now you understand why Skye works herself to death and only returns to the base to eat and sleep. Collecting resources is exhausting and time consuming, but the promise of escaping this planet is too tempting to put on hold.

As you approach your chamber, you hear an echo reverberating throughout the habitat. You only realize what it is when you get closer. Skye is coughing again.

You’re not sure what her deal is. She told you she’d take it easy to let her body rest and recover while you went out to gather resources. Obviously, she’s been pushing herself too hard, though it isn’t a surprise.

You push open the door to her bedroom.

“Skye, what’s going on with you? I thought we agreed-”

You stop in your tracks. She’s holding a bloody rag to her mouth, trying in vain to stop the gasping tremors that wrack her body. Her skin is pale, even more so than usual.

You rush over to her, searching up and down her limbs for injuries.

“What’s going on? Are you hurt?”

She continues to cough, waving you away but you aren’t leaving. She’s hurt; there’s blood. After a few minutes, it becomes clear that she has no external injuries – she’s coughing up the blood.

“Water,” she croaks as the coughing fit begins to subside.

You pull a bottle of water out of your PDA and hand it over. She sips carefully, her face strained.

“What’s going on?” you ask. “I thought you were all better.”

She hands the half-full bottle back and holds her breath. After a few seconds, she lets it out.

“I’m fine,” she says, voice level. “It’s just a cough.”

“C’mon, it’s obviously not. You’re coughing up blood.”

“I told you, I’m fine. It’s just a lingering effect of the virus.”

“I thought everything would be okay.”

“It _is_ okay. I’m cured.” She holds out her hands, no longer bearing the green marks of the infection. “See?”

“There’s something you’re not telling me,” you say.

“We got the cure. We’re building the rocket,” she insists.

“What aren’t you telling me?”

“Build the rocket, Mark!”

“Tell me!”

She stops. Taking a step back, she looks you over.

“Fine,” she says.

She sits down on the side of the bed. Not knowing what else to do, you join her.

It is a few minutes before she says anything. Apparently, what she has to say is particularly difficult.

“I was alone before you showed up,” she says at last, looking straight ahead. “I’m so glad you did, as bad as it sounds. I don’t regret a moment of it. You’ve never been a burden to me. A challenge maybe, but not a burden. If I had to go back and do it all again, I would, in an instant. It was my choice, and mine alone.”

Her words repeat the sentiment she expressed on the island, before you even made the journey to the Lost River. But now there’s blood in her lungs, and her words sound different.

“Why are you telling me this?” you ask.

She sighs. “I don’t exactly know how to say it.”

“Try,” you urge.

She pauses. “I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you what the Sea Emperor said to me.”

Skye floats in the Sea Emperor’s prison chamber, before the Sea Emperor herself. An outcropping of Brain Coral regularly replenishes her air supply as she treads water.

“You wished to speak to me?” the girl says.

“I do,” the Emperor says, tilting her gigantic head. “The thing you seek . . . you have traveled a long way . . . for one so small.”

“It was necessary,” she replies. “I wasn’t alone.”

“Indeed,” the Emperor agrees. “I sensed your presence before. I sensed your closeness. Then, you were no longer close.”

“I got a distress signal from the surface. It’d been so long since one came through, and when I heard where it was from, well, I had to turn back.”

Skye coughs. The Emperor waits patiently until she finishes, watching as she removes her dive mask to fill it with water and then replaces it. The automatic regulators drain the water from around her face, and she breathes evenly.

“Sorry,” she says. “This virus is a bitch.”

“I have seen the pain and suffering it brought to this planet. Not only for those who perished, but those that remained.”

“Yeah, and now history’s repeating itself.” Skye waves off a group of Peepers from trying to nibble on her suit. “At least this time we can put a stop to it – make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

“You . . . are not from this place. Do you really care to see it restored?”

“Honestly? No. Ever since I got here, I’ve been scraped, bitten, stabbed, chewed, tossed around, burned, crushed, not to mention whatever this infection is doing to me internally. If this planet ceases to exist, I won’t be too heartbroken.”

“Is that so?” The Emperor leans closer. Her antennae cast a soft light over Skye’s face.

“Are you gonna tell me you don’t feel the same? You’re not long for this world yourself.”

“You are . . . surprisingly knowledgeable. Yet misguided. Though I go, my offspring remain. I would hope they thrive . . . in freedom.”

“I’m sure they will,” Skye says. “I’ve waited a long time to see those eggs hatch. Though I gather you’ve waited longer.”

“And now that you are here, I ask you: was it worth it? These waters are hostile to one such as you, yet you traveled all this way. The ones that came before you sought the opportunity to save their home, yet you profess apathy for this place.”

“Yeah? Well, I wanted to go home. Can’t do that with a giant laser gun shooting everything out of the sky.”

“You cannot remember your home.”

“Get out of my head,” she snaps. “You want to know if it was worth it? I think so, and I don’t even need your stupid cure anymore.”

The Emperor straightens. “Then you know . . .”

“I’m pretty certain, but for argument’s sake, you tell me,” Skye says, folding her arms across her chest. “Is the damage reversible?”

“It . . . is not. For a fragile being such as yourself, the sickness is too advanced.”

Skye bows her head. “Then you’re telling me what I already know.”

“It is fascinating,” the Emperor says. “I have not seen a creature so aware of their own demise since the fall of this planet’s previous race of inhabitants. Though . . . they were not so accepting.”

“Mark doesn’t know. Not yet. He’s the only reason I’m here.”

“To save one life? Your struggle is justified by one?”

“When my options were either one or zero, it was the obvious choice.”

“Will you . . . tell him?”

“I don’t plan on it, though I’m sure he’ll be pissed when I don’t get in the rocket with him.”

“Deception was a trick used by those that imprisoned me here.”

“And it worked, didn’t it?” Skye fires back. “You’re not going to tell him either. Otherwise he won’t want to leave this cursed planet.”

“If he leaves, you will be alone.”

She nods. “Yes.”

“Do you fear loneliness?”

Skye clenches her fist. “Not anymore. Whatever happens, I know I’m not alone.”

Skye clenches her fist in her lap while her other hand smooths the wrinkles left in the bed sheets.

“The cure worked,” she says, “on both of us. But in my case, getting rid of the virus wasn’t enough to fix the damage it’s already done. I’m sorry, Mark. I’m sorry. I didn’t want you to know, and especially not to blame yourself.”

You jump to your feet.

“How long?” you ask. “How long did you know?”

She sighs. “Shortly after the Reaper attack.”

You pace the room, hands clenched atop your head. All through the Lost River, exploring the thermal plant, facing the Sea Dragon – she knew. She knew the cure wasn’t for her. She knew she wouldn’t get better. She knew she wouldn’t be leaving this planet on a rocket. She knew she wouldn’t see the home she can’t remember. She didn’t have to do it, but you still needed that cure. She could’ve died, yet she marched forward.

You pace, pulling at your hair.

“You weren’t gonna tell me?” you ask. “You thought I wouldn’t notice?”

“I thought I had more time,” she says with a shrug. “Otherwise, I would’ve tried to shut you in the rocket and trigger the launch from outside.”

“You could’ve left me at the seabase. If you’d just left me there, you might’ve made it in time.”

Skye stands. “That’s exactly the kind of thing I don’t want you blaming yourself for. It was my choice, my fault. The same could be said for the whole way I approached this planet. I spent months here, waiting for a rescue that wasn’t coming, waiting to wake up from a dream that wasn’t real. _Months_. I wasted so much time taking it slow, playing it safe. The virus’s progression was beyond advanced before you even showed up. That’s why I kept going. I knew it wasn’t too late for you.”

“I don’t believe it,” you say.

“I do. Sitting in the moonpool with my leg ripped open, I felt something break inside of me. Something that can’t be fixed. Trust me, I tried. ‘Cannot repair organic material.’”

Your breathing picks up; the floor blurs.

“W-what do I do, Skye? Tell me what to do.”

“Build the rocket, Mark. Survive. Make it off this planet.”

“I can’t do it without you.”

“I’m still here. And while I’m still strong enough to help, I’m going to build that rocket with you.” She pauses, watching you crumble.

“Come with me,” you plead. “The big gun is deactivated. There’s nothing to stop you from getting on that rocket. Wherever it goes, we could find help.”

“I don’t have that much time,” she says. “I’m not strong enough to survive the g-force of a launch. But at least let me watch? From a distance? At least let me know you made it.”

“Please. We’re a team. Don’t do this. Don’t leave me alone.”

“You won’t be alone,” she says, donning a watery smile. “And neither will I. Just don’t forget me, ‘kay?”

You surge forward and take her in a crushing embrace. Tears prick at the corners of your eyes.

“I didn’t ask for this,” you say, clutching her tightly.

“I know,” she says, gently running her hands down your back. “I didn’t give you the choice.”


	15. Get on the Damn Rocket

Your motivation vanishes. Skye’s the one who’s dying, so why do you feel like you had the life sucked out of you?

Construction on the rocket continues. The next time you go out to the launch platform, the fuel reserves are in place. It’s a coffin, and each new piece, a nail.

Then she gets to the cockpit.

“Cyclops shield generator?” she shrieks. She curses and throws things. Meanwhile, you sit quietly, unable to believe that soon, she won’t be here.

She leaves the base and comes back.

“Hey, get your butt over here. We gotta go back for the Cyclops after all.”

Cyclops modules can only be crafted aboard the Cyclops. You know this. But now? What’s the point of building the rocket?

“You don’t have to go,” Skye says. “You can stay here if you want.”

You have no words, so remain silent.

She crosses her arms but speaks softly. “Come with me, Mark. I’d feel a lot better if you were there.”

She only wants to take one Prawn Suit.

“What do you mean you only want to take one Prawn Suit?”

“It’s really not that far. Besides, if I need air, I can always pop the hatch and stick my head inside.”

She leads you to the floating island. It’s difficult convincing the Prawn Suit to climb up the detached structure, and eventually you have to switch places with Skye so she can work her grappling magic.

Back in the open air, you push the heavy suit through the fine sand.

Perched atop your ruby-colored head, Skye points up the hill. “Go that way.”

You find a warp gate and step through. The teleporter takes you to the other island, but when you head for the gate leading to the Sea Emperor’s chamber, Skye bangs on the glass. “Not that way.”

“Then where are we going?” you ask. “I thought you didn’t want to go through the Lost River because it would take too long.”

“And going out through the final containment facility would take us past the Sea Dragon again. I’m not suicidal.”

You bite your tongue.

“This way.”

She directs you around the quarantine enforcement platform, then inside. Skye hasn’t laughed since the last time you were here.

When you come to another warp gate, you stop.

“Where does this one lead?”

“The thermal plant,” she replies.

You rub your eyes. “Not suicidal” your ass.

“That leads us past a Sea Dragon too,” you say. “Are you sure you don’t just want to go back through the Lost River? It’s safe.” Plus, you’d have more time to spend with her.

She slides off the Prawn Suit and shrugs.

“I’m tired of playing it safe. Let’s do something dangerous.”

With that, she steps through the portal.

You swear up a storm, cursing her impetuousness, her decision process, and her lack of self-preservation.

“You know the PDA signals can travel through the portal, right?”

You swear again and step through.

Just as before, the Sea Dragon guarding the lava castle keeps itself hidden as you pass. Skye speeds ahead with her Seaglide while you trot along behind her. The Cyclops isn’t that far away, and she only sticks her head inside the Prawn Suit once, asking if she should get behind the suit and push with the repulsion cannon. You swat her away.

The Cyclops is covered in Lava Larva. Skye begins the chore of slicing away at their ranks while you dock the Prawn Suit. Despite their best efforts, the little parasites were only able to drain the submarine’s power down to fourteen percent. The thermal reactor must be working overtime.

“Welcome aboard captain, all systems online.”

That was quick.

“Got ‘em all already?” you call.

“No,” she replies. “I’m going to do the other side.”

“The captain has disembarked.”

You explore the faithful craft. Skye once told you how she never expected to return to her lifepod, and you now understand the feeling. The power levels steadily tick upward.

“Welcome aboard captain, all systems online.”

She climbs the ladder, struggling to compensate for her weak leg.

“Did you get it yet?”

“No,” you reply. “I was just thinking.”

“Well, less thinking, more doing. Let’s grab what we came here to get and get back to it. Oh, grab any titanium and lithium we left behind too.”

While you loiter near the wheel, Skye goes and collects the things she needs. You hear a high-pitched whine and turn around to see a Lava Larva sucking on the glass.

Skye appears from the engine room, the shield module in her hand.

“Ready to go?” she asks, then frowns when she sees the red grub.

“Why don’t we take the Cyclops back to the surface?” you suggest. “That way if you . . . You’ll have it close by. We can pick up the Seamoth on the way too.”

She brushes her fingers down the side of the wheel, then looks at the shield upgrade. She turns sharply.

“On one condition.”

“What?”

“You drive.”

She beckons for you to take her place, and you sidle up to the wheel.

“Seriously?” you ask.

“Of course, but if that’s the case, we’ll definitely want to put this back,” she says, holding up the module.

You pilot the Cyclops out of the lava zone and into the cool blues and greens of the Lost River. Skye naps in the rear compartment, exhausted from the day’s activities.

It’s not fair, you think as the submarine’s silent thrusters propel you along the corridor. You started off on this planet the same way she did, but you never had to build a base or construct a Cyclops. They were handed to you. You didn’t have to figure out the safest way to deal with the giant serpentine predators before they took a chunk out of you. Skye spoke from experience. You didn’t even have to search for the ingredients to the hatching enzyme because she had everything prepared. And at the end of it all, after she had done all this work, she couldn’t even benefit from the reward.

The young Ghost Leviathan lies at the bottom of the Lost River, a testament to how far she came and the remarkable things she could do. It’s outright insulting that a tiny virus is the thing that takes her down, this leviathan slayer that she is. But you also remember the Reefbacks, the ones that were infected and suffering and off-center. The infection doesn’t discriminate – it targets creatures of all sizes.

You don’t care about the Reefbacks. There will never be another like her.

You bring the Cyclops to a stop once you reach the edge of the bone fields. You don’t shut off the engine, aware that doing so will awaken Skye.

Silently, you approach and lower yourself to sit on the bed’s edge. Even when she sleeps, her face is tight and serious. Her brow is furrowed like she doesn’t have enough copper, and her hands twitch as if longing for her knife.

You place your hand in hers, and her fingers close around it. Suddenly, her eyes shoot open and she bolts upright, ramming her head into your nose.

“Oh, sorry,” she says.

You check to see if you’re bleeding, swearing under your breath. Paranoid girl almost broke your nose.

“Where are we?” she asks, getting up. She looks out the front window. “The bone fields? But we left the Seamoth back at the Giant Cove Tree! We have to go back.”

You flop onto the bed as she takes the wheel. Your nose is still pulsing in pain. When she cuts the wheel to the left, you roll off the bed and onto the floor, landing with a graceless thump.

“Do you want to drive the Seamoth?” she asks.

She talks you into it. With you in the Seamoth and her in the Cyclops, you’ll succeed in bringing all of her vehicles back to the surface. It feels good to be back in a Seamoth.

Skye leads the way, picking a passage you haven’t been down before and charging ahead with the Cyclops’s engine running at a moderate speed. Shield up and horn blasting, most Crabsquids get out of the way. They pay no mind to the little black and white submersible trailing behind.

Glowing blue spheres populate the caverns you traverse, anchored to the floor and walls by rope-like lines. Trying to recreate her fancy Seamoth maneuvers, you disengage the automatic stabilizers and immediately flip upside down. As you peel yourself off the ceiling and reach up for the controls, you realize the safety restraints may have been a good idea. Reoriented and strapped in, you try again, but it is nearly impossible to control the tiny craft for more than a few seconds – the controls are simply too sensitive.

Admitting defeat, you flip the switch for the stabilizers and accelerate to catch up with the Cyclops. According to your depth indicator, you are not too far from the surface.

You spot daylight and push forward, popping out of the water like a pebble. The Cyclops follows, breaching the surface and engulfing you with a giant wave when it comes crashing down.

The rocket platform sits a short ways away, and your mood is quashed.

“Woo, c’mon,” Skye cheers over the PDA, “let’s put a cap on this thing and send it into space.”

You follow her to the base, but stop to look at the Sea Treaders. They stare back with large, unintelligent eyes.

“Mark has boarded the habitat.”

You find Skye in the storage room, flipping through lockers.

“What are you looking for?” you ask.

“A Stalker tooth,” she says. “I need one to make enameled glass for the cockpit. I was sure I had one in here, somewhere.”

“I’ve got one on my nightstand,” you offer.

She stops. “Oh, no, that’s yours. I’ll just go get another one.”

You retrieve the Stalker tooth and hold it out for her. “Here.”

She takes it.

“Are you ready to go home?”

You shake your head, unable to look at her.

“Well, don’t think about it too much, alright?” she says with a friendly pat to your shoulder. “Take some food and water, and whatever else you’d like to take with you – I’d suggest any diamonds, rubies, or ion crystals we have lying around – and meet me on the launch platform.”

“Skye has disembarked the habitat.”

You look around, unsure whether or not you want to take anything at all. Skye’s not coming with you. She’s staying here. You’re glad she didn’t let you disassemble the base. Maybe she already knew she’d need a base to come back to.

When you meet her on the platform, she is standing at the rocket’s base, shielding her eyes from the sun as she peers up at the completed top. Her skin is ghostly pale, almost translucent.

“I’m glad we brought back enough kyanite,” she quips.

Numb, you nod your head.

She turns, sees your expression, then pouts.

“So, how much pleading will it take to convince you to go up there and start the launch process on your own?”

“I can’t go,” you say with a shrug. “I’ll stay here. I’ll wait with you.”

“Mark, c’mon. This planet is nothing but water and teeth. And I seem to recall you’re not a big fan of the ocean.”

“Doesn’t matter. I’m not leaving you here alone.”

“Oh,” she says, putting her arms around you. “That’s so sweet.”

You return the embrace, closing your eyes to breathe in her salty scent.

“But you have to know,” Skye says, “I’m not giving you that choice.”

You feel a sharp pinch. Your limbs turn to Gel Sacks and everything goes dark.

You bolt up. Everything feels heavy, yet you stand. Something falls out of your lap, but you’re too focused taking in your surroundings to care. Standing under a glass dome, you see numerous control panels. Outside, sunset paints the sky with pink and orange, and the faintest specks of starlight peer through the clouds. Skyrays congregate on the glass, flapping their fin-like wings and snapping at each other.

“Life support systems online. Pressurizing hydraulics.”

“Skye!” you shout, looking for a way out. The door is locked.

“Auxiliary power unit online. Time capsule ready.”

Frantically, you grab your PDA, pressing the comms button three times and calling for Skye to shut it off.

“Communications systems array active. Primary computer systems active.”

The rocket shudders, then stills.

On the ground, you notice the Sea Dragon tooth and stoop to pick it up. One side has words carved into it. It reads: For Stalker Bait.

You slump into the chair, holding tightly to the tooth as the rocket begins to shake.

“Ready to launch on your command captain.”

“Don’t launch,” you wail, though your voice is weak.

It doesn’t listen, and the countdown begins. You buckle the safety restraints.

“Launch in ten . . . nine . . . eight . . . seven . . . six . . . five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one . . .”

The rocket lifts off the platform and you wipe your eyes as the clouds grow closer. The force flattens you into the seat.

“Time capsule jettisoned. Caution: approaching orbital debris field.”

You close your eyes, running your thumb over the smooth surface of the Dragon’s tooth. Warning alarms beep as the entire rocket shakes.

“Orbital debris field clear. Performing gravity turn maneuver. Confirm designation coordinates: nearest interstellar phasegate. Engaging ion boosters in three . . . two . . . one . . .”

Your vision blurs. Through the blinding colors comes a final message.

“What is a wave without the ocean? A beginning without an end?” Though the voice belongs to the Sea Emperor, you cannot help seeing Skye’s face in the swirling colors. “They are different, but they go together. Now you go among the stars, and I fall among the sand. We are different. But we go . . . together.”

Your PDA chimes, “Welcome home to Alterra. Permission to land will be granted once you have settled your outstanding balance of: one trillion credits.”


	16. Epilogue

“Hey, he’s awake!”

“Please, stand back.”

“Call Amy!”

“Mister Fischbach?”

“My son.”

“Ethan, come quick.”

“Mister Fischbach? Do you know where you are?”

“. . . coma lasting five weeks.”

“Mister Fischbach? You’re in the hospital.”

“Hospital?”

“You were in a coma. Don’t worry. You’re safe now.”

“You’re safe now.”

Normalcy comes back like photographs in an album. The hospital is astounded. Your friends and family are beside themselves. Your scar is gone.

After a few days, they let you go home. You’re weak and confused, but you have people to take care of you. You remember their names.

When you’re feeling more like yourself, they tell you about your coma, how suddenly and unexpectedly it came on. They tell you about the strange brain activity you had while you were under observation and about the strange things that came out of your mouth when you first woke up.

You tell them again, about Subnautica and the Reaper Leviathans and the Prawn Suit’s stubborn controls and the smooth tooth in your hand. They smile sweetly, insisting it was all a dream.

They don’t believe you. You begin to doubt yourself.

You talk to a therapist. Every morning when you wake up, you are confused because the room isn’t round, Skye isn’t there, and there’s a dog licking your face. You can’t hear Sea Treaders humping. Sometimes you wake up because you feel a Crabsquid grab ahold of your Seamoth and the controls aren’t responding.

Amy doesn’t understand. Seán and Ethan think you blew a gasket.

The therapist wants to know if you think it was real.

“It was real to me.”

She asks you about Skye, trying to pinpoint a reason why you may have conjured up such a person. Perhaps she was a manifestation of your subconscious, a tool to help you remember things about the game while the other half of your brain tried to convince you you’d forgotten it.

She makes you doubt further.

You take medicine to sleep, but it doesn’t make anything better. You watch that kid who stutters and can’t form a complete sentence, yet claims to remember reincarnation. You play Subnautica – of all things – but she’s not there.

Skye comes to you in a dream. You know it’s a dream because when you open your eyes, she’s in the bed beside you. Still wearing her reinforced dive suit, she sleeps just like you remembered on the Cyclops. She frowns and her hands twitch.

You carefully squeeze your hand into hers, and her face relaxes. She tightens her grasp on your fingers and smiles, a single tear sliding down her cheek.

You shoot up, straining for breath and soaked in sweat. Skye is gone.

You return to your therapist.

“Good morning, Mark. How are you today?”

You sit down in the chair and grip the armrests.

“I need you to tell me if you think I’m crazy.”

She smiles, placating. “I don’t think you’re crazy, Mark.”

“You haven’t heard what I’m going to say yet.”

She waits as you arrange your thoughts.

“What if Skye _is_ real?” you ask.

She breathes, selecting her response. “What makes you think that?”

“I was in a coma. I went to Subnautica. What if Skye is a person in the real world, like me, that went into a coma and saw the same things I did? She could be out there somewhere. She would remember me too.”

“You believe you communicated through your comas?”

“Yes. I don’t know.”

“Mark, it’s been three weeks since you woke up. Don’t you think it’s more likely you simply experienced a vivid dream?”

“Then why do I still think about her? Why do I still want to find her?”

“You told me she saved your life. Perhaps this fixation is due to some gratitude you feel towards her?”

Your therapist thinks you’re crazy. You enlist the help of your friends and editors. Together, you comb through millions of video comments and posts on social media. If Skye is out there, she would try to reach out to you. She would want to make contact, right?

Maybe she feels the same doubt about the reality of the situation.

You release word-searching bots into your comment sections. No clear proof of Skye emerges.

Amy worries about you.

You make a video, knowing Skye watches your videos. You keep it vague, but Skye would understand. In a sea of comments, you can’t find her.

“I’m not giving up,” you tell Amy. “I know she’s out there.”

“How are you going to find her?”

You hire a private investigator.

“Do you know her name?”

You don’t. He asks more questions. You don’t know anything about her. Just a description.

He inquires about her mannerisms, her word choice, her inflection.

“This isn’t a lot to go on,” he says, putting away his notepad. “A description and ‘may have been or still be in a coma.’ I’ll do my best, but I’m not real hopeful you’ll find who you’re looking for.”

The prospect that she may still be in a coma, may still be trapped inside Subnautica, puts you on edge.

One of your editors finds a possible match in the comment section of one of your Subnautica videos. You look into it and set up a video call, and though you make a fan very happy, it isn’t Skye.

“I’m sorry,” you say to Amy. “This has just consumed all my time recently. I don’t know if I can stop until I know for sure.”

She places her hand on yours. “It’s important to you. So it’s important to me too.”

You’re working late, editing a string of videos with your eyes blurring every few seconds from weariness. Your phone buzzes and you look over to see who could be trying to reach you.

“P.I. Joe: Call me.”

You rub your eyes. He’s probably calling to remind you to send him more money. He’s a professional and doesn’t come cheap, but you think it’s about time you call off the search and move on with your life.

You dial the number.

He picks up with a rehearsed, “Is this a good time?”

“Yeah,” you say through a yawn. “Just doing some editing.”

“I think I found something.”

You pause, aware that your brain is short-circuiting but unable to comprehend the reason for its sudden trouble.

“Mark?”

“You wanna run that by me again?” you ask.

“I think I found that girl you’ve been looking for,” he says, then pauses. “How soon can you be on a plane?”

Colorado Springs, Colorado. You drive to a hospital on the edge of the city. Apparently, she woke up only two days ago, but you can’t be sure it’s Skye. Not until you see her.

Joe leads you through the wings. Her real name is Abigail Williams. Apparently, she’s been asking about you too. Her condition is still very fragile.

When you get to the room, you freeze. Through the window, you see a young woman lying in a hospital bed. She is sleeping. Your hands tremble and your knees turn to Gel Sacks.

“Is that her?” Joe asks.

You nod.

Her family is there. They don’t know you.

You go to her bed and stand silently. The hospital gown leaves her arms bare, but you see no scars. Her hair is longer than you remember, probably because she didn’t have to hack it off with a survival knife to keep the Sand Sharks from grabbing it. But her brow is furrowed, and her eyelids pinched tightly shut.

You reach out and hold her hand. Her skin feels warm.

After a few seconds, her eyes slowly open.

“Mark?” she says with a shaky voice – Skye’s voice.

You choke back a sob. “Hey there, Reaper Bait. I didn’t forget you.”

-Fin-


End file.
